UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


A  SYSTEM   OF  METAPHYSICS 


>5>  "^   o 


A  SYSTEM  OF 


METAPHYSICS 


BY 


GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON 

PROFESSOR    OF   PHILOSOPHY    IN    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITT 
NEW    YORK 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1904, 
BY   THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  November,  1904.     Reprinted 
October,  1914. 


Norinoatj 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass,,  U.S.A. 


\  \  \ 


TO 


JULIA  WIN  SLOW   FULLERTON 

THIS  BOOK 
IS  INSCRIBED 


PREFACE 

SOME  of  the  material  in  Chapters  I,  II,  and  V  of  this  volume 
has  already  appeared  in  the  Psychological  Review;  and  Chapters 
XV,  XVI,  and  XVII  have  been  reprinted  without  very  much 
change.  They  first  appeared  as  articles  in  the  same  journal.  In 
Chapter  XXXIII  I  have  made  some  use  of  two  articles  published 
in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly.  The  chapters  on  Space  and 
Time  are  reprinted  from  the  Philosophical  Review  with  little 
change  except  that,  in  Chapter  XI,  some  new  matter  has  been 
added.  To  the  editors  of  the  journals  mentioned,  Professor 
Cattell,  Professor  Baldwin,  and  Professor  Creighton,  my  thanks 
are  due  for  their  courtesy  in  permitting  me  to  reprint  as  I 
have  done. 

Thus,  about  one-fourth  of  the  present  volume  has  already  seen 
the  light.  It  is  right  that  I  should  say  that  nothing  that  has 
already  appeared  has  been  taken  up  into  the  book  as  an  after- 
thought. From  the  beginning  the  work  has  been  a  unit ;  it  has 
been  for  a  number  of  years  on  my  hands,  and  the  publication  of 
the  papers  above  mentioned  was  due  largely  to  a  curiosity  to 
see  how  the  doctrines  advocated  would  impress  others.  It  was, 
perhaps,  hardly  fair  to  present  them  deprived  of  their  setting, 
and  this  injustice,  if  injustice  it  be,  is  remedied  now. 

At  the  end  of  the  book  I  have  placed  a  note  on  the  Physical 
World  Order,  by  my  former  pupil,  Professor  Edgar  A.  Singer, 
Jr.,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  It  has  seemed  to  me  of 
especial  interest,  as  coming  from  one  trained  in  metaphysical 
analysis  and  familiar  with  the  principles  and  methods  of  the 

sciences. 

GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY, 
NEW  YORK,'  July,  1904. 


CONTENTS 


I. 

ii. 
in. 

IV. 

v. 


PART   I 

THE  CONTENT  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

THE  MIND  AND  THE  WORLD  IN  COMMON  THOUGHT  AND 

IN  SCIENCE 

THE  INADEQUACY  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  STANDPOINT 
How  THINGS  ARE  GIVEN  IN  CONSCIOUSNESS 


1 

17 
33 


THE  ELEMENTS  IN  CONSCIOUSNESS 56 

THE  SELF  OR  KNOWER 71 


PART   II 

THE  EXTERNAL  WORLD 

VI.    WHAT  WE  MEAN  BY  THE  EXTERNAL  WORLD       ...  95 

VII.    SENSATIONS  AND  "THINGS" 115 

VIII.     THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  APPEARANCE  AND  REALITY     .  132 
IX.     SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  APPEARANCE 

AND  REALITY 146 

X.     THE  KANTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  SPACE 162 

XI.     DIFFICULTIES   CONNECTED   WITH   THE    KANTIAN   DOCTRINE 

OF  SPACE 172 

XII.     THE  BERKELEIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  SPACE 184 

XIII.  OF  TIME 194 

XIV.  THE  REAL  WORLD  IN  SPACE  AND  TIME        ....  210 
XV.    THE  WORLD  AS  MECHANISM   .                        .                         ,  226 


PART   III 

MIND   AND   MATTER 

XVI.     THE  INSUFFICIENCY  OF  MATERIALISM    . 

XVII.     THE  ATOMIC  SELF 

XVIII.    THE  AUTOMATON  THEORY:  ITS  GENESIS 


245 
262 

284 


Contents 

PAGE 

THE  AUTOMATON  THEORY:   PARALLELISM     ....  298 

WHAT  is  PARALLELISM?  ........  313 

THE  MAN  AND  THE  CANDLESTICK  ......  332 

THE  METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  "  TELEPHONE  EXCHANGE  "         .  342 

THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  THE  WORLD  AND  THE  MIND    .  364 

THE  TIME  AND  PLACE  OF  SENSATIONS  AND  IDEAS      .        .  385 
OF  NATURAL  REALISM,  HYPOTHETICAL  REALISM,  IDEALISM 

AND  MATERIALISM        ........  399 

XXVI.    THE  WORLD  AS  UNPERCEIVED,  AND  THE  "  UNKNOWABLE  "  .  415 


XIX. 

*XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

•  XXV. 


PART   IV 
OTHER  MINDS,   AND  THE  REALM  OF  MINDS 

XXVII.     THE  EXISTENCE  OF  OTHER  MINDS          .....  433 

XXVIII.     THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MINDS 458 

XXIX.    THE  UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 473 

XXX.     SUBCONSCIOUS  MIND 488 

XXXI.     MENTAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  CAUSAL  NEXUS    .        .        .  508 

XXXII.    MECHANISM  AND  TELEOLOGY 527 

'XXXIII.     FATALISM,  "FREE-WILL,"  AND  DETERMINISM         .        .        .  550 

XXXIV.     OF  GOD 570 

XXXV.     OK  GOD  (CONTINUED) 598 

NOTE.  —  THE  PHYSICAL  WORLD  ORDER 609 


A  SYSTEM   OF  METAPHYSICS 


PART  I 
THE  CONTENT  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

CHAPTER   I 

THE  MIND  AND  THE  WORLD  IN  COMMON  THOUGHT  AND 

IN  SCIENCE 

IT  is  impossible  for  the  mature  mind  to  turn  back  to  the  expe- 
riences of  infancy,  and  directly  to  recall,  by  an  exercise  of  memory, 
the  beginnings  of  its  conscious  life.  When  we  have  attained  to 
an  age  at  which  reflection  is  possible,  and  at  which  the  impulse  to 
reflect  makes  itself  felt,  the  dawn  of  consciousness  has  passed  into 
oblivion  ;  and  he  who  is  curious  to  inquire  how  the  world  looked 
to  him,  when  he  first  rolled  an  unmeaning  eye  at  it,  must  be  con- 
tent with  information  gained  in  roundabout  ways.  As  far  back  as 
we  can  remember,  the  world  of  our  experiences  has  not  been  so 
very  different  from  the  world  in  which  we  now  habitually  live. 

It  was  formerly,  it  is  true,  a  more  indefinite  and  a  more  incohe- 
rent world,  less  marked  by  clear  distinctions  and  less  orderly,  more 
full  of  acutely  delightful  and  acutely  distressing  surprises,  more 
exciting  and  more  mysterious.  Memory  gives  us  a  series  of  pic- 
tures imperfectly  representing  the  successive  stages  by  which  the 
more  sober  and  orderly  world  of  our  later  experience  came  into 
being.  But  as  we  journey  into  the  past  the  pictures  become  more 
and  more  indefinite  and  incomplete,  and  the  series  comes  to  an  end 
before  their  general  outline  has  passed  over  into  a  something  more 
rudimentary  and  of  a  quite  different  nature.  The  world  which 
we  can  recall  is  always  a  world  of  things,  among  which  we  find 
one  peculiar  and  interesting  thing  not  to  be  placed  precisely  on  a 
par  with  the  rest,  the  self,  which  tastes,  touches,  and  possesses 
things  —  the  sun  around  which  other  things  are  made  to  revolve. 

That  this  series  of  experiences  has  been  preceded  by  other  expe- 
riences in  which  such  distinctions  do  not  exist,  and  that  they  are 


2  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

the  result  of  a  development  from  an  experience  of  the  world— if 
one  may  call  it  such — in  which  there  are  as  yet  no  objects  with 
definite  relations  to  each  other,  may  be  satisfactorily  established 
partly  by  reflection  upon  the  series  of  experiences  which  we  can 
recall,  with  the  developments  to  be  there  observed,  and  partly  by 
observation  and  interpretation  of  the  actions  of  human  bodies 
which  reveal  minds  just  passing  through  the  earlier  stages  of  their 
existence.  Thus,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  self  and  the  not-self,  a  distinction  which  thrusts 
itself  upon  the  attention  of  the  developed  mind  with  such  insist- 
ence that  we  are  inclined  to  read  it  into  the  experience  of  every 
mind,  however  rudimentary  —  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
this  distinction,  like  a  multitude  of  others  which  make  their 
appearance  in  later  life,  was  not  present  at  the  dawn  of  conscious- 
ness at  all. 

But,  however  it  may  be  with  the  infant  mind,  the  mature  man 
always  finds  himself  in  a  real  world  of  real  things,  and  he  distin- 
guishes between  himself,  as  knowing  and  acting  upon  things,  and 
the  things  over  against  which  he  stands  as  a  something  apart  and 
different.  As  has  been  said,  he  can  remember  no  time  at  which 
he  did  not  make  some  such  distinction.  Unless  he  be  accustomed 
to  reflective  thought,  it  sounds  to  him  highly  absurd  to  speak  of 
a  conscious  experience  in  which  such  distinctions  do  not  obtain. 
Can  there  be,  he  asks,  a  pain  that  is  felt  by  no  one  ?  Can  there  be 
knowledge,  or  even  anything  faintly  resembling  knowledge,  unless 
there  be  something  known  and  some  one  who  knows  that  something  ? 

His  experience  at  every  moment  seems  to  fortify  him  in  this 
position.  He  looks  at  the  pen  which  he  holds  in  his  hand,  feels  it, 
is  sure  that  he  knows  it,  and  that  it  is  lie  that  knows  it.  The  pen 
seems  capable  of  existing  by  itself,  but  surely  it  cannot  know 
itself.  It  appears  too  immediately  evident  to  call  for  proof  that 
every  act  of  knowledge  requires  the  two  participants,  the  knower 
and  the  known.  When  he  suffers,  he  is  convinced  that  he  feels 
the  pain,  and  he  knows  that  he  and  the  pain  are  not  identical. 
He  regards  it  as  quite  impossible  to  doubt  the  reality  of  such 
experiences,  which  repeat  themselves  everywhere  in  his  mental 
life,  and  he  listens  with  some  impatience  to  any  argument  which 
seems  gratuitously  to  cast  doubt  upon  their  reality. 

That  men  actually  do  have  such  experiences  as  those  cited  it 
would  be  folly  to  deny,  and  something  may  be  said  for  the  plain 


The  Mind  and  the  World  3 

man  who  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  the  metaphysician,  charm  he  never  so 
wisely.  We  do  know  objects,  and  in  the  act  of  knowing,  if  we 
think  about  the  matter  at  all,  we  are  conscious  of  distinguishing 
between  the  knower  and  the  objects  known.  One  can  have  no 
legitimate  quarrel  with  this  experience,  in  itself  considered,  nor  is 
it  reasonable  to  attempt  to  explain  it  away.  The  only  reasonable 
thing  to  do  is  to  try  to  analyze  it,  and  to  indicate  clearly  just  what 
elements  it  contains ;  in  other  words,  to  show  plainly  what  the 
experience  really  is.  That  one  may  have  experiences  without 
being  able  to  analyze  them  successfully,  and  that  most  men  make 
little  attempt  to  analyze  their  experiences,  is  matter  of  common 
observation.  An  experience  unanalyzed  is  only  half  possessed, 
and  may  easily  give  rise  to  serious  misconceptions. 

It  needs  but  little  reflection  to  convince  the  man  who  feels  so 
sure  of  the  existence  of  the  knowing  self,  of  the  object  known,  and 
of  the  activity  exercised  by  the  former,  that  there  is  much  in  his 
experience  that  is  vague  and  indefinite.  Some  distinctions  he  read- 
ily makes  which  are  not  made  by  the  child.  For  example,  where 
it  never  occurs  to  the  child  to  define  in  any  way  what  he  means  by 
the  self,  the  unavoidable  half-conscious  reflection  to  which  one  is 
impelled  by  everyday  life  leads  the  man  to,  at  least,  a  dim  con- 
sciousness of  what  is  to  be  included  under  this  name  and  what  is  to 
be  excluded. 

The  child  does  not  distinguish  between  mind  and  body  ;  the 
self  is  a  something  vaguely  distinguished  from  other  objects,  and 
in  it  the  body  stands  out  as  the  most  prominent  element,  but  there 
is  no  conscious  distinction  between  the  bodily  self  and  the  mental, 
with  the  consequent  recognition  of  the  latter  as  the  true  self  which 
knows  and  acts  upon  things,  and  from  which  all  other  things, 
including  the  body,  must  be  distinguished.  To  the  man  these 
distinctions  have  become  more  or  less  familiar.  Vague  and  indefi- 
nite as  his  ideas  are,  he  has  arrived  at  somewhat  the  same  way  of 
looking  at  things  as  that  adopted  by  the  psychologist ;  and,  indeed, 
it  is  not  unreasonable  to  regard  his  view  of  the  mind  and  the  exter- 
nal world  as  constituting  the  beginnings  of  a  science  of  psychology. 
He  believes  that  he  has  a  mind,  though  he  has  no  very  clear  notion 
of  what  it  is.  He  believes  that  this  mind  is  intimately  related  to 
his  body,  which  is  a  thing  outside  of  his  mind.  He  believes  that 
through  this  body  it  is  related  to  an  external  real  world,  from  which 
it  receives  influences  and  which  it  can  influence  in  return.  In  this 


4  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

external  world  he  thinks  he  finds  other  bodies  more  or  less  closely 
resembling  his  own,  and  believes  that  there  are  connected  with 
them  other  minds,  as  his  mind  is  connected  with  his  body.  Further, 
he  believes  that  as  he  can  express,  by  the  actions  of  his  body,  ideas 
or  emotions  in  his  mind,  so  the  minds  connected  with  other  bodies 
can  give  expression  to  their  ideas  or  emotions,  and  such  an  expres- 
sion is  to  him  the  revelation  of  the  contents  of  these  other  minds. 
By  comparing  the  mental  states  of  other  men  with  his  own,  he 
comes  to  form  some  general  notions  of  the  contents  of  other  minds 
and  of  the  ways  in  which  they  act,  thus  arriving  at  the  beginnings 
of  a  mental  science.  He  may  have  done  all  this  without  ever 
having  heard  of  the  science  of  psychology.  No  one  who  has  not 
done  all  this  has  arrived  at  the  knowledge  of  the  world  proper  to 
a  human  being  of  mature  years,  however  unscientific.  Of  course, 
some  do  the  work  better  than  others,  and  arrive  at  a  more  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  external  world  and  of  their  own  and  of  other 
minds.  But  done  in  some  way  it  must  be,  unless  healthy  mental 
development  be  arrested.  It  is  the  normal  man's  way  of  looking 
at  the  world  in  which  he  finds  himself. 

That  such  a  knowledge  of  things  as  that  above  described  is 
less  indefinite  and  rudimentary  than  that  of  the  child  in  its  ear- 
lier years  is  sufficiently  evident.  Minds  have  come  to  be  distin- 
guished from  material  things,  and  knowledge  has  become  in  itself 
an  object  of  attention.  And  yet,  as  I  have  said  above,  it  requires 
but  little  reflection  to  convince  the  plain  man  at  this  stage  of  his 
progress  toward  clear  thinking,  that  there  is  still  much  in  his 
experience  which  is  very  indefinitely  and  unsatisfactorily  known. 
He  speaks  of  an  external  world,  but  would  be  at  a  loss  to  describe, 
if  asked  to  do  so,  just  what  he  means  by  that  phrase.  The  mind 
he  distinguishes  from  the  body,  and  yet  when  he  is  brought  to 
ask  himself  what  a  mind  is,  and  how  he  thinks  of  it,  he  realizes 
that  his  thought  is  vagueness  incarnate.  He  probably  makes  a 
distinction  between  the  mind  and  its  ideas,  but  can  give  no  intel- 
ligible account  of  the  relation  of  the  mind  to  these  ideas ;  and 
although  he  feels  sure  that  the  mind  knows  things,  he  has  not 
the  faintest  notion  how  it  knows  them. 

From  the  inaccurate  and  indefinite  knowledge  of  minds  proper 
to  the  unscientific,  one  may  take  refuge  in  psychology ;  and  for  a 
more  satisfactory  knowledge  of  the  external  world  one  may  turn 
to  the  various  physical  sciences.  In  entering  upon  the  study  of 


The  Mind  and  the  World  6 

these,  the  plain  man  does  no  great  violence  to  the  ways  of  think- 
ing to  which  he  has  been  accustomed.  He  does  not  change  his 
whole  point  of  view.  He  merely  learns  to  do  more  accurately 
and  carefully  what  he  has  done  before,  namely,  to  observe,  com- 
pare, classify,  and  infer.  He  is  still  in  a  world  of  material  things, 
in  the  one  case,  and  in  a  world  of  minds  which  know  things,  in 
the  other. 

For  instance,  as  a  plain  man,  he  has  known  plants  and  ani- 
mals. He  has  observed  them  more  or  less  narrowly,  and  he  has 
some  rather  loosely  generalized  information  regarding  them.  In 
becoming  a  botanist  or  a  zoologist,  he  collects  his  information 
more  planfully  and  arranges  it  more  critically.  But  he  goes 
through  no  intellectual  revolution  in  becoming  a  botanist  or  a 
zoologist.  As  a  plain  man  he  knew  something  about  plants  and 
animals  ;  as  a  scientist  he  knows  much  more ;  but  his  knowledge 
is  of  the  same  general  nature.  There,  in  the  real  world,  are  real 
objects  which  he  is  to  examine  and  upon  which  he  may  experi- 
ment. The  results  obtained  by  the  botanist  and  the  zoologist  are 
sufficiently  intelligible  to  him,  even  if  he  be  a  very  poor  scientist 
himself.  They  are  expressed  in  a  language  of  which  he  has 
always  known  at  least  the  rudiments. 

And  the  physiologist  assumes,  just  as  he  has  been  in  the  habit 
of  doing,  an  external  world,  in  which  are  a  number  of  organized 
bodies,  forming  a  part  of  a  real  system  of  things.  He  seeks  to 
obtain  a  general  knowledge  of  the  peculiar  phenomena  presented 
by  these  bodies,  and  to  fix  their  relations  to  the  rest  of  the  sys- 
tem. Ever}'-  one  knows  something  about  physiology,  even  if  he 
has  never  heard  the  word  pronounced.  One's  ignorance  may  be 
profound,  but  even  in  that  case  it  differs  from  that  of  the  physi- 
ologist only  in  degree.  The  point  of  view  is  essentially  the  same. 
Lungs  are  lungs,  and  exist  and  function  in  a  real  external  world 
among  other  real  things,  and  the  only  problem  is  to  discover  how 
they  conduct  themselves  there.  Physiological  truths  do  not  lead 
one  away  from  the  ways  of  thinking  to  which  one  is  accustomed 
in  common  life.  Physiology  has  to  do  with  external  things  in 
an  external  world ;  it  assumes  that  they  can,  under  given  condi- 
tions, be  known ;  and  it  troubles  itself  little  about  the  meaning 
of  externality  or  the  nature  of  knowledge. 

It  may  here  be  objected  that  what  has  above  been  said  of  such 
sciences  as  botany,  zoology,  and  physiology,  can  hardly  be  said 


6  The,  Content  of  Consciousness 

of  certain  other  sciences,  such  as  chemistry  and  physics;  nor, 
indeed,  of  the  sciences  first  mentioned,  in  so  far  as  they  may  be 
based  upon  the  latter.  The  chemist  and  the  physicist  seem  to 
take  leave  of  things  as  we  know  them,  and  to  pass  into  a  new  and 
different  world  of  things  imperceptible  to  the  senses.  To  the 
plain  man  the  real  external  world  consists  of  extended  things 
which  may  be  seen  and  touched.  These  things  appear  to  be  con- 
tinuous ;  and,  although  they  may  be  divided,  the  parts  into 
which  they  may  be  divided  are  conceived  as  really  parts,  i.e.  as 
fragments  of  the  things,  and  as  of  the  same  general  nature  with 
them.  But  to  the  chemist  and  the  physicist  these  realities  have 
become  appearances ;  not  the  things  themselves,  but  phenomena 
under  which  the  real  things,  themselves  imperceptible,  make 
their  presence  evident  to  the  observer.  Is  this  the  world  of 
things  in  which  the  plain  man  finds  himself,  and  in  which  he  lives 
and  moves  and  has  his  being  ? 

But  a  closer  scrutiny  reveals  that,  although  the  material 
world  is  to  the  man  of  science  by  no  means  the  same  thing  that 
it  is  to  the  unscientific,  yet  it  is  a  world  of  essentially  the  same 
nature,  and  it  is  not  difficult  for  the  plain  man  to  understand  the 
language  in  which  it  is  explained  to  him.  The  atom,  for 
example,  is  supposed  to  exist  in  space  and  to  move  about  in 
space.  It  is  not  directly  perceivable  by  sense,  but  it  is  conceived 
as  though  it  and  its  motions  were  thus  perceivable.  Atoms  are 
thought  of  as  material  things  ;  it  is  assumed  that  they  can  be 
indirectly  known ;  and  no  such  questions  are  raised  as  those  of 
the  nature  or  possibility  of  knowledge,  the  nature  of  space,  and 
what  is  meant  by  existence  or  reality. 

There  is  much  in  the  experience  of  the  unlearned  man  that 
can  make  comprehensible  to  him  the  views  of  the  nature  of 
matter  held  by  the  chemist.  He  has  long  known  that  things 
consist  of  parts  which  are,  at  least  under  some  circumstances, 
invisible.  Every  time  that  he  approaches  an  object  from  a  dis- 
tance, it  is  made  manifest  to  him  that  parts  become  visible  which 
were  not  visible  a  moment  before.  The  animated  speck  which 
crawls  away  before  his  eyes,  he  infers  to  be  an  insect,  and  to  be 
as  complicated  as  insects  usually  are.  That  he  cannot  discern 
its  parts  does  not  prevent  him  from  believing  that  such  exist. 
Nor  is  his  belief  arbitrary  and  ungrounded;  it  rests  upon  his 
experiences  of  things  and  the  variations  of  things  in  his  experi- 


The  Mind  and  the  World  7 

ence.  Moreover,  he  has  had  abundant  opportunity  to  remark  the 
fact  that  what  appears  to  the  sense  continuous  when  observed 
from  a  distance,  may  be  recognized  as  presenting  many  a  gap 
when  seen  from  a  nearer  point.  It  is  far  from  inconceivable  to 
him  that  bodies  which  seem  continuous  should  really  be  com- 
posed of  atoms  separated  by  considerable  intervals.  Finally,  the 
thought  that  different  combinations  of  atoms  should  exhibit  dif- 
ferent properties  does  not  strike  him  as  surprising.  He  who  has 
brewed  a  bowl  of  punch,  or  looked  on  at  the  manufacture  of  a 
pudding,  has  observed  that  things  in  combination  do  not  have 
the  same  properties  as  the  same  things  taken  separately,  and  he 
can  readily  generalize  this  experience  so  as  to  make  it  cover  cases 
which  have  not  yet  fallen  within  his  experience,  and  even  cases 
which  can  never  enter  his  experience  directly,  but  for  the  reality 
of  which  he  has  credible  evidence  of  some  sort.  The  plain  man 
has  already  reasoned  as  do  the  chemist  and  the  physicist,  but  he 
has  not  carried  his  reasonings  so  far,  nor  has  he  been  as  accurate 
and  systematic.  Had  he  not  had  such  experiences  as  I  have 
described,  the  doctrine  of  molecules  and  atoms  would  strike  him 
as  incomprehensible ;  and,  indeed,  had  the  man  of  science  not  had 
such  experiences,  he  would  never  have  framed  the  hypothesis  in 
question.  There  would  have  been  lacking  the  basis  demanded 
by  scientific  hypotheses,  the  foundation  in  experienced  fact  with- 
out which  they  can  have  no  sort  of  significance. 

The  truth  that  the  man  of  science  occupies  essentially  the 
same  standpoint  as  the  plain  man  may  be  illustrated,  not  merely 
by  a  reference  to  those  sciences  which  have  to  do  directly  with 
existing  things,  whether  they  be  regarded  as  perceptible  or  as 
imperceptible  to  the  senses  ;  it  may  be  illustrated  by  a  reference 
to  the  abstract  sciences  as  well.  Some  mathematical  knowledge 
is  possessed  by  every  civilized  man  who  is  not  intellectually 
deficient.  He  can  count  things,  add  and  subtract,  multiply  and 
divide.  These  same  things  are  done  by  the  mathematician,  and, 
with  the  aid  of  an  ingenious  system  of  symbols,  are  done  in  a  very 
complicated  way.  The  plain  man  reflects  but  little  upon  the 
nature  of  numbers  ;  his  aim  is  to  use  them.  The  relativity  of 
number  he  has  learned  at  a  very  early  age  ;  he  knows  that  the 
same  bit  of  wood  may  be  both  a  yard  long  and  three  feet  long, 
and  that  one  dozen  is  the  equivalent  of  twelve  units.  But  it  does 
not  occur  to  him  to  ask  himself  precisely  what  happens  in  his 


8  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

mind  when  it  conceives  of  something  as  a  unit.  The  science  of 
arithmetic  does  not,  or  at  least  it  need  not,  trouble  itself  about 
such  matters  a  whit  more  than  he.  We  all  know,  in  a  certain 
dim,  unanalytic  way,  what  we  mean  by  a  unit  and  by  the  successive 
addition  of  units.  We  know  what  it  is  to  grasp  together  as  a 
whole  a  number  of  individuals,  to  separate  a  whole  into  its  con- 
stituent parts,  and  to  compare  two  wholes  and  find  them  equal  or 
unequal.  The  arithmetician  may  assume  this  knowledge  to  be 
present  in  the  mind  of  the  man  whom  he  undertakes  to  instruct ; 
and  may,  proceeding  upon  this  basis,  show  him  how  to  repeat  in 
more  and  more  complicated  ways,  operations  which,  in  a  simple 
form,  he  has  been  accustomed  to  perform  from  his  very  childhood. 
If  the  pupil  desires,  not  so  much  to  perform  the  operations  in 
question,  as  rather  to  pry  curiously  into  their  ultimate  nature,  he 
may  be  referred  to  the  psychologist,  the  logician,  or  the  meta- 
physician. The  arithmetician  is  in  no  way  bound  to  answer 
questions  touching  such  topics  as  these. 

The  same  thing  is  true  in  geometry.  Every  man  has  some 
notion  of  what  is  meant  by  a  point,  a  line,  a  surface,  and  a  solid, 
however  abortive  may  prove  his  attempts  at  definition.  He  knows 
that  even  a  very  small  surface  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  a  point, 
and  that  a  narrow  strip  of  surface  is  not  a  line.  He  is  willing  to 
affirm  with  confidence  that  the  thinnest  sheet  of  ice  has  two  faces, 
and  not  one  only.  The  axioms  assumed  by  the  geometrician 
appear  to  him  reasonable,  because  he  seems  to  find  them  verified 
in  his  experience  ;  and,  indeed,  he  seems  to  himself  always  to 
have  known  them,  although  it  would  not  have  occurred  to  him  to 
state  them  in  that  general  form.  He  can  see  that  a  straight  line 
is  shorter  than  a  crooked  one  joining  two  points.  When  he  con- 
templates a  triangle  before  him,  he  sees,  and  he  was  able  to  see 
before  he  studied  the  mathematics,  that  the  sum  of  the  three 
internal  angles  is  greater  than  any  one  or  any  two  of  those  angles 
taken  alone.  The  exact  determination  of  the  sum  of  the  three 
angles,  and,  in  general,  the  exact  determination  of  any  geometrical 
relations  save  the  very  simplest,  can  only  come  when  he  has  had 
the  proper  schooling  ;  although  individuals  may  differ  rather 
widely  in  their  conception  of  the  proper  meaning  to  be  given  to 
the  phrase,  "  the  very  simplest  relations,"  and  some  may  be  able 
to  see  at  a  glance  what  others  can  only  be  brought  to  see  with  a 
deal  of  assistance. 


The  Mind  and  the  World  9 

There  is,  then,  no  absolute  line  dividing  the  geometrical 
knowledge  possessed  by  all  normal  minds  from  that  possessed 
by  the  geometrician.  The  knowledge  of  the  latter  is  more  exact, 
more  exactly  expressed,  and  it  covers  a  far  wider  field,  since  it  is 
possible  by  the  aid  of  scientific  methods  to  perceive  a  multitude 
of  relations  which  it  is  beyond  the  power  of  the  untutored  mind 
to  grasp.  But  the  fundamental  notions  of  geometry  are  taken 
from  common  experience,  and  the  world  of  space  and  of  things  in 
space  remains  essentially  the  same,  after  one  has  become  familiar 
with  geometrical  reasonings,  that  it  was  before.  The  geometri- 
cian is  under  no  obligations  to  ask  himself  how  it  is  possible 
for  the  mind  to  know  extended  things,  to  enter  into  speculations 
regarding  the  nature  of  space,  or  even  to  attempt  to  solve  the  con- 
tradictions which  seem  to  stare  him  in  the  face  when  he  reflects 
upon  the  continuousness  of  space  and  the  possibility  of  its  infinite 
divisibility.  All  these  problems  remain,  and  call  for  a  solution, 
after  the  geometrician  has  done  his  work.  But  there  is  no  good 
reason  why  they  should  be  laid  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  mathe- 
matician, nor  does  it  seem  that  they  can  be  solved  by  the  employ- 
ment of  the  methods  which  he  is  accustomed  to  use  in  his  work. 

If  we  turn  from  such  sciences  as  we  have  been  discussing  to 
the  science  of  psychology,  we  find  that  the  case  is  in  no  wise 
different.  We  have  seen  that  a  certain  amount  of  psychological 
knowledge  is  possessed  by  the  plain  man  before  he  has  made  any 
attempt  at  scientific  accuracy,  but  we  have  also  seen  that  his 
knowledge  of  the  mind  cannot  but  be  fragmentary  and  indefinite, 
unsystematic  and  unsatisfactory.  It  must  differ  from  that  pos- 
sessed by  the  psychologist  somewhat  as  the  knowledge  of  plants 
common  to  intelligent  persons  who  take  an  interest  in  them  differs 
from  the  knowledge  of  the  botanist,  or  as  the  mathematical  knowl- 
edge of  common  life  differs  from  that  of  the  mathematician.  The 
difference  is  here,  as  in  the  other  cases,  a  difference  rather  of  degree 
than  of  kind. 

This  may  be  clearly  seen  from  the  descriptions  given,  in  the 
handbooks  of  psychology,  of  the  way  in  which  the  plain  man  has 
attained  to  the  psychological  knowledge  which  he  enjoys.  We 
there  find  that  the  subject  of  our  discussion  has  had  recourse  to 
introspection,  that  he  has  made  use  of  the  objective  method,  and 
that  he  has  not  confined  himself  to  mere  observation,  but  has 
sometimes  experimented.  Experience  of  his  own  conscious  states 


10  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

has  given  him  the  key  which  is  to  make  significant  the  expressions 
and  actions  of  other  men  and  of  the  brutes.  He  has  certainly 
observed  these  expressions  and  actions,  and  has  framed  a  more 
general  notion  of  mind  than  he  could  have  done  by  a  mere  exami- 
nation of  his  own  mental  processes.  And  every  time  that  he  has 
sought  by  persuasion,  or  by  any  other  means,  to  produce  a  given 
mental  state  in  another,  he  has  employed  experiment,  as  does  the 
galopin  who  rides  on  the  back  platform  of  the  bob-tailed  car,  at  a 
personal  inconvenience  to  himself,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of 
getting  the  driver  "  wild."  Of  course,  such  introspection  as  he 
has  attempted  has  been  blind  and  instinctive  ;  his  observation 
has  been  loose  and  inaccurate  ;  his  experiments  were  undertaken 
for  no  scientific  purpose,  and  some  of  them  sin  in  all  sorts  of  ways 
against  the  canons  of  scientific  experiment.  Nevertheless,  they 
remain  introspection,  observation,  and  experiment.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  plain  man  and  the  psychologist  does  not  lie  in 
the  fact  that  the  latter  uses  any  method  peculiar  to  himself, 
esoteric  and  above  the  comprehension  of  the  unlearned.  It  is 
simply  a  case  of  the  difference  everywhere  found  between  the 
scientific  and  the  unscientific,  between  the  man  who  applies 
methods  carefully  and  seeks  accurate  and  exhaustive  knowledge 
of  a  subject,  and  the  man  who  feels  his  way  blindly,  going  only 
so  far  as  he  is  compelled  to  go  by  immediate  practical  needs. 
The  knowledge  of  mind  gained  by  the  plain  man  is  loose  and 
vague,  more  or  less  inconsistent,  and  very  limited  in  extent. 
Yet  it  is,  as  far  as  it  goes,  a  knowledge  of  mind,  not  different  in 
kind  from  that  of  the  psychologist,  and  obtained  in  the  same  way. 

Now  that  psychology  is  emerging  from  that  ill-defined  medley 
which  has  passed  by  the  name  of  philosophy,  and  is  taking  its 
place  as  a  distinct  discipline,  it  is  gradually  coming  to  be  accepted 
that  the  psychologist  must  occupy  much  the  same  standpoint  as 
the  ordinary  man.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  he  must  be  as 
loose  and  careless  in  his  thinking,  but  merely  that  he  must  be 
scientific  rather  than  metaphysical,  accepting  without  question  the 
assumptions  upon  which  the  natural  sciences  rest,  and  investigating 
the  phenomena  of  mind  as  they  investigate  material  phenomena. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  compare  the  psychology  of  a  generation 
or  two  ago  with  that  of  the  present  day,  to  see  how  strong  is  the 
current  which  sets  for  psychology  as  natural  science.  The  change 
is  both  natural  and  necessary  ;  it  is  only  another  instance  of  the 


The  Mind  and  the  World  11 

division  of  labor  which  always  follows  the  successful  exploitation 
of  the  various  fields  of  investigation,  and  of  which  the  history  of 
science  furnishes  so  many  instances.  It  is  coming  to  be  seen  that 
the  psychologist,  like  the  student  of  the  physical  sciences,  may 
legitimately  restrict  the  scope  of  his  investigations ;  that  he  may 
refuse  to  attempt  the  solution  even  of  problems  which  naturally 
suggest  themselves  to  one  laboring  in  that  particular  field,  if  it  is 
not  necessary  to  solve  them  in  the  attainment  of  the  definite  ends 
which  the  psychologist  sets  out  to  reach.  There  seems  the  more 
reason  for  his  position  when  it  is  seen  that  the  problems  referred 
to  —  which  may,  as  a  class,  be  termed  epistemological  or  meta- 
physical—  cannot  be  solved  without  an  apparent  repudiation, 
certainly  without  a  thorough  analysis  and  revision,  of  those 
assumptions  upon  the  basis  of  which  psychological  investigations 
more  and  more  commonly,  and  very  conveniently,  proceed. 

In  harmony  with  this  position  the  psychologist  assumes  an 
external  real  world,  the  world  of  matter  and  motion.  In  this 
world  there  are  organized  bodies  presenting  certain  peculiar  phe- 
nomena which  he  regards  as  indications  of  mental  action.  He 
accepts  a  plurality  of  minds  distinct  from  each  other  and  from  the 
system  of  material  things,  each  standing  in  a  peculiar  and  intimate 
relation  to  one  body.  Each  mind  knows  directly  its  own  states, 
and  knows  everything  else  by  inference  from  those  states,  receiving 
messages  along  certain  bodily  channels  and  reacting  along  others. 
Upon  this  basis  he  strives  to  give  an  accurate  account  of  the  con- 
tents of  minds  and  to  trace  the  history  of  their  development.  He 
stands  upon  the  same  ground  as  the  ordinary  man,  and,  as  has 
been  said  above,  he  follows  the  same  methods  in  his  investigations, 
making  use  of  introspection,  observation,  and  experiment.  He 
applies  the  methods  in  a  broader  and  more  scientific  way ;  he  is 
clearer,  and  more  exact  and  thorough  ;  but  he  remains  a  student 
of  "  natural  science."  However  he  may  modify,  as  a  result  of  his 
studies,  his  views  of  minds  and  of  their  relation  to  a  material 
world,  he  still  holds  to  the  existence  of  distinct  individual  minds 
in  certain  relations  to  such  a  world  and  through  that  to  each  other. 
He  conceives  each  as  shut  up  to  its  representations  of  things,  and 
dependent  upon  messages  conveyed  to  it  from  without,  as  does  the 
disciple  of  Locke.  Ideas  are,  to  him,  like  images  in  a  mirror, 
numerically  distinct  from  the  things  which  they  represent,  and  of 
which  they  give  information. 


12  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

In  all  this  there  is  a  distinct  advance  upon  the  knowledge  of 
minds  possessed  by  the  unscientific.  Not  only  does  the  careful 
and  systematic  application  of  the  methods  of  investigation  result 
in  a  much  larger,  better  established,  and  better  arranged  mass  of 
information,  but  the  clear  statement  of  the  assumptions  upon  which 
the  science  rests  is  an  important  gain.  Somewhat  as  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  child  differs  from  that  of  the  man  does  the  knowledge 
of  the  plain  man  differ  from  that  of  the  psychologist.  The  dis- 
tinction between  the  self  and  the  external  world  which  exists 
vaguely  in  the  childish  mind  has  grown  more  definite  in  the 
mature  mind,  indefinite  as  it  may  be  even  there.  In  the  mind  of 
the  psychologist  such  distinctions  have  attained  a  still  greater 
degree  of  definiteness. 

For  example,  whereas  the  child  scarcely  thought  about  his 
ideas  of  things  at  all,  or  distinguished  between  his  mind  and  his 
body,  or  the  minds  and  bodies  of  others,  to  the  man  these  distinc- 
tions have  become  familiar.  He  now  regards  his  ideas  of  things 
as  distinct  from  things,  and  as,  in  a  sense,  representative  of  things. 
He  knows  that  he  may  have  false  ideas  of  things,  and  that  it  is 
quite  possible  for  the  idea  and  the  thing  to  be  very  different.  He 
knows  that  ideas  come  to  him  through  the  avenues  of  the  senses, 
and  that  disturbances  of  the  sense  may  cause  a  modification  of  the 
idea,  while  the  temporary  or  permanent  closing  of  the  avenue 
causes  the  temporary  or  permanent  loss  of  the  corresponding  set 
of  messages  from  the  outer  world.  He  regards  his  ideas  as  in  his 
mind,  and  he  is  very  apt  to  look  upon  his  mind  as,  not  merely  re- 
lated to,  but  in  his  body  —  preferably  in  his  head.  Moreover,  he 
distinguishes  vaguely  between  himself,  a  something  he  can  scarcely 
even  attempt  to  define,  and  the  ideas  of  which  he  is  conscious. 
But  he  does  not  confound  this  self  with  the  body,  or  with  any 
external  thing.  He  has  thus  arrived  at  a  consciousness  of  two 
worlds  rather  strongly  contrasted,  an  inner  and  an  outer  ;  nor  is 
his  state  of  mind  to  be  confused  with  the  far  more  indefinite  state 
of  the  childish  mind.  Certain  distinctions,  before  merely  implicit, 
have  emerged  into  the  foreground  of  consciousness. 

But  it  is  to  be  remarked  that,  although  the  plain  man  distin- 
guishes between  his  ideas  of  things  and  the  thinsfs  which  they 

O  O  i/ 

represent,  he  is  guilty  of  an  inconsistency  in  vaguely  believing  that 
he  somehow  knows  external  things  directly,  and  not  merely 
through  his  ideas.  He  is  quite  ready,  it  is  true,  to  assent  to  the 


The  Mind  and  the  World  13 

general  statement  that  he  and  others  may  have  false  ideas,  and 
may  sometimes  be  deceived  about  things.  He  may  have  experienced 
hallucinations,  he  has  certainly  had  dreams,  and  he  has  noticed  that 
the  same  object  may  look  and  feel  differently  when  presented 
to  the  sense  in  different  ways.  It  is  because  he  has  had  these  and 
certain  other  experiences  that  he  is  impelled  to  make  the  distinc- 
tion between  external  things  and  our  representative  ideas  of  them. 
But  he  has  not  reflected  sufficiently  upon  such  experiences  ;  and 
when  he  stands  in  front  of  an  object,  within  a  reasonable  distance 
of  it,  it  does  not  occur  to  him  to  regard  the  object  as  merely  an  ex- 
ternal cause  of  an  internal  experience  —  which  may,  theoretically 
at  least,  be  a  false  and  misleading  experience.  He  is  confident  that 
he  directly  knows  the  object  out  there  before  him,  and  the  inter- 
vention of  a  representative  is  overlooked. 

Here  the  psychologist  is  more  thoroughgoing.  He,  too, 
distinguishes  between  external  things  and  our  ideas  of  them, 
making  the  ideas  representative  of  the  objects.  But  he  realizes 
that,  when  he  has  done  this,  he  must  not  again  confound  the 
objects  and  their  representatives,  and  thus  lose  the  distinction 
which  he  has  drawn.  He  insists  that  the  external  world  of  things 
must  in  every  instance  be  regarded  as  numerically  distinct  from 
the  copies  of  it  built  up  in  individual  minds  ;  and  that,  conse- 
quently, all  his  own  experiences,  however  vividly  they  may  seem 
to  give  him  immediate  knowledge  of  external  things,  are  never- 
theless merely  representatives  of  the  things  in  question.  In  other 
words,  the  psychologist  admits  that  the  objects  of  which  he  is 
immediately  conscious,  and  which  by  the  plain  man  are  assumed 
to  be  external  things,  are  not  really  constituent  parts  of  the 
external  world,  but  are,  so  to  speak,  duplicates  of  these,  which 
exist  in  the  mind  itself,  and  merely  stand  for  what  is  external. 

The  plain  man  who  looks  at  an  object  before  him  and  feels 
impelled  to  believe  that  he  is  directly  conscious  of  the  thing  out 
there  in  space,  may  be  thrown  into  perplexity  by  the  very  simple 
experiment  of  pressing  gently  upon  the  side  of  one  of  his  eyeballs. 
The  object  seen  is  at  once  doubled.  It  is  fair  to  ask  him 
whether  both  of  these  things  seen  are  the  real  object,  or,  if  not, 
whether  the  one  has  any  better  claim  to  that  title  than  the 
other.  If  he  does  not  see  the  real  object  when  his  eyes  are 
tampered  with,  but  sees  only  images,  he  may  well  ask  himself 
whether  what  he  saw  before  was  the  real  object,  or  merely  an 


14  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

image  of  it.  The  psychologist  solves  such  problems  by  declaring 
all  the  objects  of  which  we  are  immediately  conscious  to  be  mere 
representatives  of  what  is  without,  but  maintains  that  the  repre- 
sentatives obtained  through  the  sense-organs,  under  certain  normal 
conditions,  give  truer  information  regarding  the  world  beyond 
than  those  gained  under  other  conditions.  It  is  of  course  incum- 
bent upon  him  to  support  this  position  by  evidence,  and  evidence 
of  a  kind  he  can  undoubtedly  furnish. 

But  there  is  still  another  way  in  which  the  psychologist's  view 
of  the  mind  differs,  or  ought  to  differ,  from  that  of  the  unscien- 
tific. The  latter  has  gotten  so  far  as  to  recognize  the  existence  of 
ideas,  of  conscious  states,  and  to  distinguish  them  from  external 
objects,  as  we  have  seen.  But  he  believes  vaguely  in  the  existence 
of  a  self,  which  is  distinct  from  any  or  all  of  its  conscious  states, 
which  in  some  sense  underlies  them,  or  has  them,  and  which  is 
the  agent  in  knowing,  feeling,  and  willing.  How  this  self  or  "  I  " 
knows  or  acts,  he  does  not  pretend  to  say ;  even  what  it  is,  he  can- 
not make  intelligible  to  himself  or  to  others ;  but  he  believes  that 
it  is,  and  that  it  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  things  which 
it  knows  or  upon  which  it  exercises  its  activity.  There  is,  of 
course,  some  danger  of  injustice  in  attributing  to  a  man  beliefs 
which  have  never  emerged  in  his  mind  to  any  degree  of  clearness 
and  definiteness,  but  it  seems  safe  to  say  that  the  plain  man  believes, 
vaguely  and  indefinitely,  in  the  sort  of  a  self  indicated  above.  He 
thinks  that  he  is  conscious  of  something  of  the  kind,  and  the  lan- 
guage which  we  have  all  inherited  and  daily  employ  is  well  adapted 
to  foster  such  a  belief.  We  say  :  "  I  think,"  "  I  feel,"  "  I  will,"  and 
the  "  I "  in  our  thought  vaguely  stands  for  a  something  different 
from  all  mental  states  whatever.  It  is  a  something  big  with 
mystery  and  possible  misconception. 

To  the  psychologist,  however,  a  mind  is,  or  should  be,  nothing 
more  than  a  transcript  of  the  external  world  supplemented  by 
certain  conscious  states  not  supposed  to  have  their  prototypes 
without,  feelings  of  pleasure,  pain,  etc.  If  we  use  the  word  "idea" 
to  cover  broadly  all  those  things,  which,  according  to  the  less 
scientific  view,  the  mind  "has,"  we  may  say  that  the  psychologist 
should  regard  the  mind  as  wholly  composed  of  ideas,  and  should 
regard  his  task  as  accomplished  when  he  has  satisfactorily  anatyzed 
and  arranged  these.  A  mind  is,  of  course,  a  very  complex  little 
world,  and  the  phenomena  it  presents  are  by  no  means  easy  to 


The  Mind  and  the  World  15 

analyze  and  classify.  Some  things  in  it  seem  to  stand  out  clearly; 
some  remain,  after  our  best  efforts,  dim  and  vague.  It  is  quite 
conceivable  that  certain  things,  commonly  supposed  to  have  their 
being  in  such  a  world,  should  turn  out,  upon  investigation,  to  be 
mere  chimeras.  It  is  not  difficult,  in  the  obscurity  which  still 
covers  much  of  our  mental  life,  to  confound  one  thing  with  another, 
to  create  a  phantasm,  or  to  seek  diligently  for  the  solution  of  a 
problem  which  should  never  have  been  proposed  for  solution. 
These  truths  the  psychologist  should  acknowledge  ;  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  his  task  should  not  lead  him  to  jump  to  unintelligible 
or  merely  tautological  explanations  of  obscure  mental  phenomena, 
nor  despair  of  analyzing  into  its  elements  what  has  heretofore 
resisted  his  efforts  at  analysis.  He  need  not  deny  the  conscious- 
ness of  self  experienced  by  the  plain  man  and  the  psychologist 
alike  ;  but  he  may  legitimately  expect  to  find  it,  when  subjected 
to  careful  examination,  a  mental  state,  not  wholly  different  from 
other  mental  states,  and  containing  nothing  hopelessly  mysterious. 
He  simply  abandons  his  task  when  he  introduces  obscure  meta- 
physical notions  to  piece  out  his  incomplete  psychological  knowl- 
edge ;  and  in  so  far  as  he  does  this,  he  must  renounce  the  claim 
to  be,  in  any  just  sense  of  the  word,  a  man  of  science. 

I  have  said  that  the  psychologist  does,  or  should,  regard  minds 
as  consisting  wholly  of  conscious  states,  and  it  has  been  necessary 
to  speak  thus  guardedly  because  there  are  still  not  a  few  psycholo- 
gists who  cling  to  an  older  and  a  less  scientific  way  of  regarding 
the  mind.  But  the  scope  and  methods  of  the  science  of  psychol- 
ogy are  coming  to  be  more  and  more  definitely  limited  ;  and  to 
my  mind,  at  least,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  psychologist  of  the 
future  will  regard  it  as  a  work  of  supererogation  to  enter  upon 
the  discussion  of  the  nature  or  functions  of  any  self,  or  ego,  or 
"  knower "  which  cannot  be  resolved  into  a  complex  of  mental 
elements.  That  the  current  is  running  in  this  direction  appears 
to  be  abundantly  evident.  As  I  purpose  somewhat  later  to  revert 
to  this  topic,  and  give  definite  reasons  why  the  psychologist 
should  abandon  the  older  view,  I  shall  say  no  more  upon  the 
subject  at  present. 

From  the  foregoing,  it  is  plain  that  the  differences  between 
the  knowledge  of  minds  common  to  all  intelligent  persons  and 
that  peculiar  to  the  student  of  psychology,  are  sufficiently 
important.  But  it  is  also  clear  that  a  recourse  to  psychology 


16  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

will  not  solve  all  the  problems  which  arise  out  of  the  experience 
of  things  which  we  all  possess.  The  psychologist  describes  the 
development  of  a  consciousness,  and  endeavors  to  give  an  accurate 
account  of  its  contents  ;  but  he  assumes,  as  does  every  student  of 
natural  science,  the  existence  of  a  world  of  material  things  in  rela- 
tion to  our  mental  states.  He  may  tell  us  how  we  come  to  build 
up  a  mental  image  of  a  system  of  extended  things,  but  he  is  no 
more  bound  to  tell  us  what  is  the  ultimate  nature  of  space  than 
is  the  physicist.  He  pictures  the  development  of  a  consciousness 
in  time,  and  he  tries  to  explain  how  we  come  to  form  the  notion 
of  time,  but  we  have  no  right  to  ask  him  what  time  is,  or 
whether  it  is  in  itself  subjective  or  objective.  His  work  touches 
much  more  closely,  it  is  true,  such  problems  as  these,  than  does 
the  work  of  the  physicist ;  we  feel  impelled  to  ask  him  his  opinion 
upon  such  points  at  many  stages  of  his  progress.  But  he  has  a 
right  to  refuse  us  an  answer,  on  the  ground  that  he  is  prosecuting 
studies  in  a  natural  science,  that  his  science  rests,  like  others, 
upon  assumptions  which  may  be  further  analyzed,  but  that  it  is 
more  convenient  to  refer  the  carrying  out  of  such  analyses  to  a 
special  discipline,  which  is  similarly  related  to  many  sciences. 
As  a  psychologist,  he  is  justified  in  putting  such  things  aside,  and 
in  remaining  upon  the  plane  of  the  common  understanding,  the 
plane  of  natural  science. 

There  is,  of  course,  much  that  is  vague  in  the  thinking  of  the 
man  who  rests  wholly  on  the  plane  of  natural  science.  The 
physicist  may  have  no  very  clear  notion  of  all  that  he  means 
by  matter  and  energy,  and  yet  he  may  be  a  good  physicist.  He 
may  experiment  with  ingenuity,  and  observe  and  record  phenom- 
ena with  accuracy.  And  the  psychologist  may  have  the  vaguest 
of  notions  as  to  the  whole  connotation  of  the  word  "  mind,"  or  of 
the  phrase  "a  material  wo  rid,"  and  yet  he  maybe  a  good  psycholo- 
gist and  materially  add  to  our  knowledge  of  minds.  If  he  has 
not  carried  on  with  some  measure  of  success  the  sort  of  reflective 
thinking  demanded  in  metaphysics,  he  will  probably  mix  from 
time  to  time  with  his  psychology  more  or  less  crude  material  that 
is  not  strictly  psychological.  But  this  is  on  his  part  a  work  of 
supererogation.  He  has  the  right,  as  has  the  physicist,  to  work 
in  his  own  field,  and  to  make  use  of  some  concepts  which  he  has 
not  completely  analyzed. 


CHAPTER   II 
THE  INADEQUACY  OF   THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL  STANDPOINT 

IT  is  easily  apparent  that  the  position  taken  by  the  plain  man 
and  by  the  psychologist  touching  the  relation  of  minds  to  an 
external  world  calls  for  further  criticism,  and  cannot  be  regarded 
as  final  except  within  the  field  of  psychology.  It  is,  indeed,  a 
convenient  fiction,  and  must  not  be  accepted  as  though  it  were 
a  literal  statement  of  the  truth.  Upon  examination  it  turns  out, 
when  taken  literally,  to  be  flatly  self-contradictory,  and  thus  to 
annihilate  itself.  And  since  this  position  is  natural  to  all  men, 
so  long  as  their  thinking  remains  upon  the  plane  of  the  common 
understanding,  and  the  need  of  subjecting  it  to  further  criticism 
is  evident  only  to  the  few  who  have  made  some  progress  in  reflec- 
tive thought,  it  is  well  worth  while  to  spend  a  little  time  in  the 
examination  of  the  psychological  standpoint,  and  to  make  the 
above-mentioned  contradiction  stand  out  with  distinctness. 

We  have  seen  that  this  view  of  the  mind  and  the  world 
assumes  that  each  mind  has  only  its  representative  images  of 
things,  and  cannot  directly  attain  to  the  things  themselves. 
When  it  asks  how  a  given  mind  comes  to  have  a  knowledge  of 
an  external  thing,  it  concerns  itself  with  the  messages  that  have 
been  conveyed  to  the  mind  by  means  of  the  bodily  senses — with 
the  materials,  so  to  speak,  out  of  which  the  image  has  been  built 
up.  It  describes  in  detail  the  process  of  building  up  such  an 
image,  and  distinguishing  sharply  between  the  image  and  the 
corresponding  thing,  it  maintains  that  the  mind  knows  only  so 
much  about  the  thing  as  is  contained  in  this  image  and  in  other 
images  obtained  in  a  similar  way.  It  admits  that,  given  an 
image  in  the  absence  of  the  thing  (an  hallucination),  the  mind 
will  have  absolutely  no  way  of  knowing  the  thing  to  be  absent 
except  by  referring  to  its  other  experiences  and  assuming  this  one, 
as  abnormal,  to  be  a  false  representative,  and  without  a  corre- 
sponding reality  behind  it.  In  other  words,  it  shuts  the  mind  up 
c  17 


18  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

to  its  own  circle  of  consciousness,  and  makes  the  external  world 
present  to  it  only  by  proxy.  The  outer  world,  as  the  mind  imme- 
diately knows  it,  is  a  complex  mental  experience,  built  up  out  of 
mental  elements,  and  not  the  real  outer  world  at  all.  Thus 
the  very  idea  "  outer  "  is,  to  the  mind  possessing  it,  only  a  some- 
thing in  consciousness — an  inner  representative  of  genuine  ex- 
ternality. It  is  not  a  real  "outer,"  but  merely  its  image. 

Let  us  try  by  the  aid  of  an  illustration  to  get  a  clear  notion  of 
this  view  of  the  mind.  Let  us  imagine  a  man  imprisoned  in  a 
doorless  and  windowless  cell,  whose  heavy  walls  shut  out  every 
aspect  of  the  luminous  and  resonant  world  without.  He  has 
always  been  thus  a  prisoner,  in  solitude  and  darkness,  and  in 
a  silence  broken  only  by  the  click  of  the  telegraphic  key  which  is 
the  sole  avenue  by  which  messages  may  arrive  from  the  unknown 
beyond  the  walls  which  encompass  him.  He  can  grope  his  way 
about  his  cell,  and  has,  hence,  some  experience  of  space  and  of 
things  in  space.  He  can  make  sounds  which  he  can  himself  hear. 
And  he  has,  in  addition,  the  series  of  sounds  mentioned  as  pro- 
duced independently  of  him,  and  constituting  messages  from 
another  world.  To  such  elements  is  his  experience  limited. 

What  sort  of  a  world  can  he  build  up  out  of  such  experiences, 
and  how  must  he  proceed  in  its  construction  ?  It  is  evident 
that  he  is  not  in  the  position  of  one  who  has  thus  been  im- 
prisoned after  having  enjoyed  an  extended  experience  of  things 
as  they  appear  to  those  who  walk  abroad.  He  is  not  possessed 
of  the  secret  which  makes  a  message  at  once  recognizable  as  a 
message,  and  turns  a  series  of  meaningless  sounds  into  a  wealth 
of  information  regarding,  not  sounds  merely,  but  also  a  variety 
of  other  things  which  bear  little  resemblance  to  them.  It  re- 
quires a  certain  amount  of  information  to  be  able  to  recognize 
that  a  given  experience  is  a  representative  of  something  beyond 
itself  ;  a  message  does  not  announce  itself  as  such  under  all 
circumstances ;  and  one  may  gaze  long  upon  the  cross-section 
of  a  bit  of  cord  without  being  able  to  guess,  from  that  single 
experience  taken  by  itself,  what  manner  of  thing  it  is  to  which 
this  little  plane  surface  belongs,  or,  indeed,  whether  it  belongs 
to  anything  at  all.  One  cannot  have  the  least  idea  that  a  suc- 
cession of  sounds  is  a  message,  and  has  come  from  without,  so 
long  as  one  knows  absolutely  nothing  about  it  save  that  it  is 
found  within.  The  Prisoners  in  the  Den,  which  Plato  has 


The  Inadequacy  of  the  Psychological  Standpoint      19 

described  for  us,  could  not  know  the  shadows  upon  which  their 
eyes  were  fixed  to  be  shadows,  so  long  as  they  had  no  experience 
of  real  things  with  which  to  contrast  them. 

Thus  our  prisoner  must  build  up  the  world  of  his  knowledge 
out  of  such  experiences  as  he  actually  possesses,  and  we  must 
be  careful,  in  picturing  his  condition,  not  to  attribute  to  him 
possibilities  which  can  arise  only  out  of  the  possession  of  the 
larger  experience  which  we  ourselves  possess.  He  has  some 
knowledge  of  space  and  of  things  in  space,  and  it  is  conceivable 
that,  by  what  would  be  to  him  a  bold  flight  of  the  constructive 
imagination,  he  might  imagine,  and  perhaps  come  to  believe  in 
the  reality  of,  a  much  larger  material  world  than  that  with  which 
he  is  immediately  familiar.  He  could  conceive  the  theoretic 
possibility  of  his  passing  the  barriers  which  hem  him  in,  and  of 
finding  other  real  things  of  the  same  general  nature  as  the  things 
he  knows.  In  doing  this  he  would  be  doing  what  we  all  do 
when  we  speculate  regarding  the  possibility  of  a  boundless  ma- 
terial universe,  or  create  in  imagination  an  unseen  world  of 
atoms  and  molecules  in  relation  to  the  world  of  things  we  im- 
mediately perceive.  And  having  perceived  that  sounds  made 
to  originate  in  one  part  of  his  cell  could  be  heard  in  another  part, 
and  that  sounds  may  give  some  indication  of  the  nature  of  the 
occurrence  that  brings  them  into  being,  he  might  even  come  to 
refer  those  sounds,  for  which  he  was  not  himself  responsible, 
to  imagined  occurrences  in  the  outer  world  which  he  had  con- 
ceived, and  recognize  them  as  in  a  certain  sense  messages. 

How  far  human  ingenuity  could  go  in  building  up,  upon  so 
slender  a  basis  of  experienced  fact,  an  idea  of  an  outer  world 
bearing  a  resemblance  to  the  real  outer  world  which  surrounds 
our  prisoner,  it  is  perhaps  hardly  profitable  to  attempt  to  guess. 
That  human  ingenuity  may  do  much  in  extending  the  limits  of 
knowledge  beyond  the  confines  of  the  immediately  perceptible,  all 
who  have  some  acquaintance  with  the  results  attained  by  science 
must  admit.  But  certain  things  should  be  carefully  noted  :  — 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  clear  that  the  subject  of  our  illustration 
must  find  in  his  own  actual  experiences  some  sort  of  justification 
for  the  transition  to  an  unseen  world  which  he  now  conceives  as 
beyond  them.  He  must  reason  by  analogy,  passing  from  like  to 
like,  from  a  limited  to  a  possible  wider  experience  not  dissimilar 
from  the  former.  Did  he  not  find  in  his  experience  some  fact 


20  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

which  could  best  be  explained  by  the  assumption  of  such  a  world 
—  I  mean  really  explained,  as  facts  are  explained  within  his 
experience  —  the  larger  world  would  remain  to  him,  if  he  framed 
the  conception  of  it  at  all,  a  mere  dream.  It  could  not  be  a  legiti- 
mate object  of  belief. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  clear  that  the  larger  world  arrived 
at  by  inference  cannot  contain  any  element  not  present  in  some 
form  in  the  little  world  of  the  experiences  which  we  are  supposing 
to  be  actually  present.  The  man  who  has  come  to  believe  in  it 
has  not  created  a  new  world,  he  has  merely  extended  in  thought 
the  world  in  which  he  finds  himself.  Had  he  not  already  an 
experience  of  space  and  of  things  in  space,  did  he  not  know  by 
actual  experience  what  is  meant  by  spaces,  he  would  not  have  the 
elements  which,  fitted  together,  constitute  his  idea  of  a  larger 
world.  Thus  we  see  that  the  larger  world  of  which  we  are  now 
speaking  cannot  possibly  be  a  world  of  colors.  No  triumph  of 
ingenuity  can  transport  our  captive  within  "  the  borders  of  light." 
However  he  may  exercise  his  ingenuity  to  enlarge  the  world  in 
which  he  is  condemned  to  live,  it  must  remain  forever  a  world  of 
essentially  the  same  character.  How  could  he  possibly  so  put 
together  experiences  of  sound  or  of  touch  as  to  make  them  truly 
representative,  not  of  other  sounds  or  touches,  or  combinations  of 
such,  but  of  a  something  so  diverse  as  colors  ?  Here  we  find  a 
gulf,  which  must  remain  forever  impassable,  a  gulf  which  he  can- 
not even  recognize  as  a  gulf,  for  there  is  to  him  nothing  at  all  in 
that  direction,  not  even  a  void  —  there  is,  indeed,  not  so  much  as 
a  direction,  there  is  nothing. 

Now  the  isolation  of  the  mind,  as  conceived  by  the  psycholo- 
gist, is  far  more  complete  than  that  of  the  hypothetical  inhabitant 
of  the  cell.  It  is,  in  fact,  cut  off  from  the  external  world  as  a 
whole,  as  our  prisoner  is  cut  off  from  the  world  of  colors.  There 
is  simply  no  bridge  leading  from  the  inner  world  to  the  outer. 
That  this  is  not  an  extreme  statement  of  the  case  it  needs  only 
a  moment's  reflection  to  reveal ;  although  the  fact  appears  at  first 
sight  to  be  contradicted  by  the  existence  of  the  several  avenues  of 
sense,  furnishing  to  the  mind  a  mass  of  information  of  a  very 
varied  nature.  One  is  tempted  to  picture  the  mind,  not  as 
imprisoned  in  a  gloomy  cell,  and  laboriously  working  out  for 
itself,  by  the  aid  of  analogical  reasoning,  a  hypothetic  world, 
which  constitutes  a  somewhat  shadowy  continuation  of  the  world 


The  Inadequacy  of  the  Psychological  Standpoint      21 

of  immediately  experienced  fact ;  but  rather  as  the  inhabitant  of 
a  fair  mansion  well  provided  with  windows  on  every  side,  and  as 
being  able  to  gaze  freely  upon  a  varied  and  extended  landscape. 

But  this  impulse  is  checked  at  once  by  the  thought  of  what 
the  psychologist's  position  really  implies.  The  mind  is,  he 
teaches,  quite  shut  up,  so  far  as  its  immediate  knowledge  goes, 
to  its  own  ideas  ;  and  though  it  may  think  of  an  external  world, 
it  is  wholly  impossible  that  it  should  look  out  of  the  windows  and 
into  the  world  beyond,  at  any  moment  of  its  existence.  That 
there  are  such  things  as  windows  it  can  only  know  by  inference ; 
the  windows  are  not  immediately  perceived.  Nothing  is  immedi- 
ately perceived  save  sensations  and  other  mental  elements,  which 
we  may  indicate  by  the  use  of  the  term  "idea."  The  fact  that 
these  elements  are  of  diverse  sorts,  and  that  they  may  be  built 
up  into  complex  constructions,  does  not  in  itself  prove  that  they 
are  something  representative  of  a  world  without,  and  that  they 
furnish  some  sort  of  a  picture  of  such  a  world.  A  complex  of 
ideas  is,  after  all,  only  a  complex  of  ideas ;  and  the  belief  that 
there  is  in  existence  anything  beyond  the  ideas  and  their  actual 
and  possible  combinations,  should,  if  it  is  to  be  a  rational  belief, 
be  founded  upon  some  sort  of  evidence. 

Such  evidence  would  be  furnished,  if,  for  example,  a  mind 
could  have  immediate  knowledge  of  some  external  occurrence 
resulting  in  a  stimulation  of  one  of  the  bodily  organs  of  sense, 
could  have  similar  knowledge  of  this  bodily  organ  and  its  con- 
dition of  stimulation,  and  could  perceive  a  conscious  sensation  to 
be  the  effect  of  such  external  occurrences.  Given  such  an  experi- 
ence, there  would  be  at  least  a  starting-point  for  further  rea- 
sonings. Sensations  not  thus  perceived  to  be  the  result  of 
external  happenings  could  be  inferred  to  be  such.  And  a  direct 
comparison  of  things  external  and  internal  in  a  few  instances 
might  furnish  material  for  a  general  theory  regarding  the  rela- 
tions existing  between  the  two  worlds,  and  the  similarity  or 
diversity  of  nature  obtaining  between  them.  Could  one  from 
time  to  time  apply  an  observant  eye  to  the  peep-hole  in  the 
curtain  which  separates  the  stage,  upon  which  our  conscious  life 
enacts  its  drama,  from  the  theatre  of  the  larger  world  beyond, 
even  fugitive  glimpses  would  serve  to  show  that  the  stage  is  but 
a  limited  part  of  a  larger  whole,  and  stands  in  relation  to  the 
rest.  But  such  a  glimpse  of  the  external  world  the  psychologist 


22  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

denies  us,  as  he  must,  when  he  has  once  made  and  carried  out 
with  impartial  thoroughness  the  distinction  between  ideas  and 
the  things  for  which  they  stand,  mental  representatives  and  the 
realities  which  they  are  supposed  to  represent. 

Yet  even  where  all  direct  knowledge  of  the  external  world  is 
denied,  it  is  conceivable  that  a  mind  might,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, obtain  some  knowledge  of  an  external  world  of  a  certain 
sort.  It  is,  however,  very  important  to  remark  these  conditions, 
and  to  remark  also  the  sort  of  an  external  world  that  could  be 
reached.  We  have  seen  that  the  man  in  the  cell  could  conceivably 
extend  his  knowledge  beyond  the  world  of  his  cell,  by  reasoning 
in  a  legitimate  way  upon  a  basis  of  experienced  fact.  But  we 
have  seen  also  that  the  outer  world  must  be  for  him  a  continua- 
tion and  extension  of  the  world  he  knows,  not  something  quite 
different  in  kind.  It  must  be  something  really  capable  of  repre- 
sentation by  elements  actually  given  in  his  experience,  and  what 
is  not  thus  given,  even  in  its  elements,  cannot  be  for  him  an  outer 
world  at  all. 

The  same  thing  is  true  in  the  present  instance.  If,  for 
example,  we  conceive  of  a  mind  as  occupying  a  certain  portion 
of  space,  as  containing  ideas  which  are  extended  things  —  not 
mere  non-extended  representatives  of  extended  things,  but  really 
extended  —  then  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  a  mind  may,  stand- 
ing upon  a  basis  of  actual  experience,  represent  to  itself,  in 
some  intelligible  sense  of  those  words,  an  external  world  lying 
beyond  itself.  It  knows  what  extension  means  ;  it  knows  what 
it  means  when  it  speaks  of  things  as  beyond  each  other.  It  can, 
by  a  mental  construction,  conceive  symbolically,  as  we  always  do 
conceive  symbolically,  immense  spaces  not  given  in  any  immediate 
experience.  But  the  external  world  thus  conceived  would  not  be 
a  world  of  a  wholly  new  and  different  kind  from  that  directly 
known.  It  would  be,  as  was  the  outer  world  of  the  man  in  the 
cell,  a  continuation  of  the  little  world  directly  perceived.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  such  a  world  must  not  be  a  merely 
gratuitous  assumption.  There  must  be  some  good  reason  for 
believing  it  to  exist,  or  the  belief  has  no  justification.  More- 
over, the  justification  must  be  found  within  the  little  world 
which  serves  as  the  sole  basis  for  the  whole  construction. 

Now  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to  remark  that  no  such 
conditions  as  the  one  adduced  are  fulfilled  in  the  conception  of 


The  Inadequacy  of  the  Psychological  Standpoint       23 

the  mind  furnished  us  by  the  psychologist.  He  does  not  con- 
ceive of  the  mind  as  occupying  a  small  portion  of  space,  and 
as  passing  in  its  knowledge  beyond  the  limits  of  that  portion 
in  the  manner  described.  He  does  not  mean  by  an  external 
world  a  mere  continuation  of  the  internal  world,  and  a  world 
of  the  same  general  character.  Such  a  continuation  of  the 
world  of  ideas  would  give  us  only  a  more  extended  circle  of 
ideas,  not  a  world  of  things  supposed  to  differ  in  kind  from 
ideas  of  whatever  sort.  The  psychologist  usually  tells  us,  for 
example,  that  the  inner  world  exists  only  in  time,  while  the  outer 
world  exists  both  in  time  and  in  space.  In  other  words,  nothing 
within  the  mind  is  extended,  but  material  things  do  possess 
this  property.  But  if  this  be  so,  it  is  fair  to  ask,  How  can  the 
mind  find  even  a  starting-point  from  which  it  may  represent  to 
itself  in  any  way  a  world  of  extended  things  ?  It  may  build  to- 
gether into  a  system  the  ideas  that  it  has  ;  it  may  observe  their 
connections  and  the  order  in  which  they  succeed  each  other  ;  it 
may  even  look  forward  with  confidence  to  experiencing  in  a 
different  way  ideas  which  it  has  not  as  yet  experienced  except 
as  images  in  the  imagination  ;  it  may  thus  extend  the  world  of 
its  experiences  by  believing  in  the  possibility  of  further  experiences. 
But  in  all  this  there  is  not  the  least  justification  for  passing  from 
a  world  of  actual  or  possible  experiences  to  a  something  of  a  quite 
different  kind.  For  such  a  procedure  there  is  not  that  first  founda- 
tion in  experience  without  which  the  whole  fabric  of  one's  reason- 
ing must,  in  every  case,  become  as  unsubstantial  as  a  city  in  the 
clouds. 

Moreover,  since  there  is  in  the  circle  of  ideas  no  element 
which  can,  in  an  intelligible  sense  of  the  word,  represent  an  ex- 
tended thing,  there  is  not  only  no  justification  for  an  extension  of 
knowledge  to  a  realm  beyond  consciousness,  but  there  is  not  even 
the  possibility  of  framing  the  least  conception  of  what  such  an  ex- 
tension may  mean.  The  man  in  the  cell  may,  in  imagination, 
extend  the  little  world  of  the  things  which  he  knows  beyond  the 
limits  given  in  his  experience,  though  he  may  doubt  whether  he 
is  justified  in  believing  in  the  existence  of  such  an  outer  world. 
Still,  he  at  least  means  something  when  he  conceives  it.  His  mind 
is  not  a  mere  blank.  But  if  his  experience  furnished  him  with  no 
knowledge  of  extension  whatever,  he  would  be  as  unable  even  to 
think  of  such  an  outer  world  as  he  is  now  to  conceive  the  world  of 


24  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

light  and  colors.  Thus  it  is  with  the  hypothetical  mind  of  the 
psychologist.  It  cannot  even  conceive  the  possibility  of  an  "  outer  " 
world  which  is  not  really  an  "  inner,"  a  mere  distinction  within  the 
circle  of  its  ideas.  Not  only  is  there  no  justification  for  an  advance, 
but  there  is  not  even  a  direction  in  which  there  may  be  an  advance. 
There  is  not  a  limit,  as  we  ordinarily  conceive  of  a  limit  ;  there  is 
simply  nothing.  And  what  has  been  said  of  extension  may  be 
said  of  any  other  quality  attributed  to  the  outer  world  which  is 
wholly  denied  to  the  inner.  There  is  no  conceivable  way  in  which 
a  knowledge  of  it  may  be  attained  by  a  mind  circumstanced  as  is 
the  one  we  have  been  picturing.  For  such  a  mind  it  is  incon- 
ceivable that  the  external  world  should  exist  at  all. 

Such  must  be  the  condition  of  a  mind  shut  up  to  an  immedi- 
ate knowledge  of  its  own  ideas  solely.  Its  images  of  things 
cannot  be  to  it  images  giving  information  regarding  things  be- 
yond them.  They  must  themselves  be  things  ;  the  only  things 
it  knows,  unless  we  include  other  things  of  the  same  kind, 
reached  by  an  inference  from  these,  in  the  manner  indicated 
above.  In  contemplating  its  condition  of  complete  insulation,  we 
are  struck  by  the  oddity  of  the  fact  that  this  whole  doctrine 
rests  upon  reasonings  in  which  it  is  assumed  that  the  mind  is 
not  shut  up  to  its  own  experiences,  but  directly  knows  an  exter- 
nal world  of  things.  The  contradiction  is  palpable  and  unmis- 
takable ;  between  premises  and  conclusion  there  is  an  abyss 
which  may  be  concealed  by  obscurity  and  confusion  of  thought, 
but  which  cannot  be  bridged  by  any  legitimate  procedure.  The 
argument  supposed  to  yield  the  conclusion  in  question  may  be 
set  forth  briefly  as  follows :  — 

A  man  looks  at  his  own  body,  the  body  of  his  neighbor,  and  some 
material  object,  in  front  of  which  both  are  standing,  and  he  seems 
to  himself  to  be  immediately  conscious  of  all  three.  He  grants 
his  neighbor  a  knowledge  of  the  object,  reasoning  as  I  have  in- 
dicated in  the  chapter  preceding,  and  distinguishes  between 
this  man's  knowledge  of  the  object  and  the  object  itself.  The 
former  he  makes  a  representative  of  the  latter,  connects  it  in 
thought  with  the  man's  brain,  and  admits  that  it  may  even  not 
wholly  resemble  the  object  as  he  sees  it.  He  holds  that  the  man 
is  not  directly  conscious  of  the  object  itself,  but  infers  it  through 
the  representative  image.  He  then  applies  the  same  reasoning  to 
himself,  and  concludes  that  he  is  himself  not  really  conscious  of 


The  Inadequacy  of  the  Psychological  Standpoint      25 

the  three  objects  with  which  he  started,  but  only  of  representative 
images.  Through  such  images  he  must  infer  the  whole  outer 
world  —  his  own  body,  other  men,  other  things. 

But  if  he  is  not  really  conscious  of  his  own  body,  the  other 
man's  body,  and  the  real  object,  what  becomes  of  his  reasoning  ? 
Of  what  is  the  other  man's  image  representative,  and  with  what  is 
it  connected  ?  Is  it  representative  of  an  external  object  ?  The 
object  which  it  has  been  assumed  to  represent  is  now  seen  to  be 
an  image  in  his  own  consciousness,  and  there  is  not  a  shadow  of 
evidence  that  it  represents  any  other.  With  what  brain  is  it 
connected  ?  The  brain  belonging  to  that  body  which  is  under 
observation  ?  That  body,  too,  is  now  seen  to  be  his  own  image, 
and  is  relegated  to  consciousness.  And  what  do  his  own  images 
represent,  and  where  are  they  ?  His  image  of  the  object  cannot 
represent  that  object  seen  out  there  in  front  of  his  body.  That 
object  is  his  image,  if  he  is  shut  up  to  images,  and  his  body  as 
perceived  is  another  image  in  his  consciousness  with  the  object. 
The  real  object,  the  real  body,  are  things  to  be  inferred.  They 
are  not  open  to  direct  inspection.  His  image  of  the  thing 
must  not  be  referred  to  the  brain,  which  belongs  to  the  body  of 
whose  existence  he  is  directly  aware.  It  must  be  referred  to  a 
brain  in  a  totally  different  world.  Where  look  for  evidence  that 
it  is  connected  with  any  such  brain  in  any  such  body  ?  Yet 
evidence  must  be  adduced  for  all  this.  The  doctrine  that  there 
is  an  external  world,  and  that  it  is  mirrored  by  a  number  of  minds 
which  are  shut  up  to  their  own  representations  of  it,  is  not  usually 
advanced  as  a  gratuitous  fiction.  It  is  supposed  to  rest  upon  evi- 
dence. Is  not  one  conscious  of  one's  own  mental  experiences  ? 
Can  one  not  observe  the  relations  of  these  to  the  material  world  ? 
Can  one  not  arrive  by  analogical  reasoning  at  some  notion  of  the 
mental  states  of  others,  and  apply  one's  results  to  one's  self  ?  The 
appeal  is  to  experience,  to  observation,  and  induction.  And  yet, 
if  the  conclusion  of  the  argument  be  true,  the  foundation  upon 
which  it  rests  is  a  delusion.  If  one  be  really  shut  up  to  one's  own 
mental  states,  one  has  never  observed  their  relations  to  material 
things,  and  never  inferred  from  changes  in  material  things  the 
mental  states  of  another.  It  is  a  strange  argument  that  rests  upon 
an  assumption  which  its  conclusion  declares  to  be  false. 

The  difficulty  here  pointed  out  is  not  assumed  gratuitously.  It 
is  really  inseparable  from  the  psychological  position  both  of  the 


26  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

plain  man  and  of  the  psychologist,  though  it  is  forced  into  greater 
prominence  by  the  superior  consistency  and  clearness  of  the 
latter.  The  plain  man  distinguishes,  in  his  loose  fashion,  be- 
tween a  man's  ideas  of  things  and  the  things  themselves,  and  he 
admits  that  if  the  ideas  are  not  true  representatives,  their  pos- 
sessor will  not  truly  know  the  things.  The  psychologist  makes 
more  distinct  the  line  of  separation,  and  conceives  the  man's 
whole  experience  of  an  outer  world  to  be  a  mere  copy  of  what  is 
external,  describing  in  detail  the  elements  of  which  it  is  built  up, 
and  the  process  of  its  formation.  Both  hold,  explicitly  or  implic- 
itly, that  we  perceive  directly  the  outer  world,  and  that  we  do  not 
so  perceive  it,  but  only  infer  it.  The  contradiction  is  there.  It 
is  embedded  in  the  very  structure  of  the  psychological  position, 
the  standpoint  of  common  thought  and  of  natural  science.  Psy- 
chology is  not  called  upon  to  solve  it,  for  it  does  not  concern 
psychology.  The  psychologist  has  done  and  still  does  excellent 
work  while  simply  disregarding  it.  It  may  safely  be  left  to  the 
metaphysician. 

And  the  metaphysician,  if  he  be  wise,  will  not  quarrel  with 
the  psychological  standpoint.  He  will  recognize  its  value  as  a 
basis  for  work  of  a  certain  kind,  and  he  will  object  to  the  psychol- 
ogist's mixing  with  his  psychology  reasonings  which,  however 
true  and  valuable  in  themselves,  serve  only  to  darken  counsel 
when  mingled  injudiciously  with  other  things.  He  may,  as  meta- 
physician, point  out  where  the  difficulty  really  lies,  show  why  the 
psychologist's  assumption  need  not  lead  to  error,  and  indicate 
how  the  results  obtained  by  him  are  true  even  for  metaphysics, 
when  restated  in  certain  ways.  But  he  will  regard  such  discus- 
sions as  more  or  less  out  of  place  in  a  text-book  of  psychology,  and 
will  regret  finding  them  there,  much  as  he  would  regret  finding 
metaphysical  reflections  introduced  to  any  great  extent  in  a 
treatise  on  physics. 

To  what  has  been  advanced  in  the  pages  preceding,  exception 
may  be  taken  in  two  very  different  ways.  It  may  be  claimed,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  the  psychologist  need  not  take,  even  provision- 
ally, so  untenable  and  inconsistent  a  position  as  the  one  described, 
but  may  restate  his  facts  at  the  outset,  rejecting  what  is  untrue  or 
misleading,  as  the  metaphysician  proposes  to  do.  On  the  other 
hand,  one  may  hold  to  the  psychological  standpoint  in  a  somewhat 
modified  form,  and  attempt  to  remove  the  contradiction  by  declar- 


The  Inadequacy  of  the  Psychological  Standpoint      27 

ing  that  both  the  ideas  and  the  things  they  represent  are  directly 
given  in  perception. 

The  first  of  these  objections  has  already  received  an  answer  in 
the  last  chapter.  I  have  there  tried  to  show  that  the  natural  man 
finds  himself  in  a  world  of  things,  and  distinguishes  between  those 
things  and  his  ideas  of  them.  That  he  is  not  consistent  and 
thoroughgoing  in  carrying  out  this  distinction  has  been  pointed 
out,  and  it  has  been  shown  that  the  psychologist  goes  further 
in  this  direction  than  he  does.  But  it  has  been  insisted  that,  how- 
ever psychology  may  improve  upon  the  thinking  of  the  natural 
man,  it  must,  if  it  is  to  remain  a  natural  science,  remain  upon  the 
plane  of  the  common  understanding,  accepting  the  standpoint  of 
the  natural  man,  a  standpoint  accepted  by  the  natural  sciences 
generally,  and  must  avoid  passing  over  to  the  sort  of  thinking 
which  has  by  common  consent  come  to  be  distinguished  as  meta- 
physical or  epistemological.  The  two  kinds  of  thinking  are  by 
no  means  the  same,  and  one  who  does  very  good  work  upon  the 
plane  of  natural  science  may  still  be  incapable  of  doing  good  work 
of  the  latter  kind,  unless  he  has  some  degree  of  aptitude  and  has 
enjoyed  some  special  training —  a  fact  not  infrequently  over- 
looked, and  sometimes  with  disastrous  consequences. 

That  the  psychological  view  of  the  mind  and  the  external 
world  appeals  to  the  common  understanding  as  a  natural  one, 
must  be  evident  to  any  one  who  has  had  the  task  of  introducing 
classes  of  students  to  an  acquaintance  with  the  mental  sciences. 
The  distinction  between  ideas  and  the  things  they  represent,  the 
limiting  the  direct  knowledge  of  the  mind  to  the  circle  of  its  ideas, 
the  description  of  the  building  up  of  a  mental  picture  of  an  external 
world  by  the  fitting  together  of  the  messages  received  from  with- 
out—  all  this  they  find  quite  comprehensible  and  not  incredible. 
It  is  only  when  they  are  asked  to  dissolve  the  very  foundations  of 
the  world  of  ideas  and  things,  with  which  they  are  uncritically 
familiar,  by  entering  upon  a  metaphysical  analysis  which  refuses 
to  recognize  such  a  view  of  things  as  ultimate,  that  they  draw 
back  in  dismay.  It  is  difficult  for  them  to  attain  any  intelligent 
comprehension  of  the  new  point  of  view.  And  this  is  equally  true 
of  those  who  are  accustomed  to  work  at  all  exclusively  in  any  of 
the  natural  sciences.  It  is  easy  to  see,  when  they  make  an  excur- 
sion into  philosophy,  as  they  sometimes  do,  that  they  find  it  very 
hard  not  to  carry  over  with  them  the  assumptions  upon  which 


28  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

their  work  has  proceeded  in  their  own  field.  They  are  apt  to 
remain  psychologists  when  they  think  they  have  become  philoso- 
phers. They  cannot  shake  off  the  old  ways  of  thinking. 

Since  this  is  so,  and  since  psychology  can  express  its  truths 
without  recasting  them  from  the  standpoint  of  the  metaphysician, 
it  is  surely  wiser  for  the  psychologist  to  pursue  his  investigations 
as  do  the  workers  in  other  natural  sciences.  Much  modern 
psychological  work  is  done  in  this  way,  and  I  can  see  no  good 
reason  why  all  should  not  be.  The  psychologist  should  accept 
without  question  an  external  world  ;  should  assume  that  his  own 
ideas  of  things  represent  it,  and  can  be  proved  by  observation  to 
represent  it  truly  ;  should  infer  from  the  actions  of  other  bodies 
ideas  more  or  less  like  his  own,  which  are  representatives  of  ex- 
ternal things  as  are  his  ideas.  He  should  then,  in  harmony  with 
the  psychological  fiction  that  no  one  is  directly  conscious  of  exter- 
nal real  things,  assume  that  each  mind  is  shut  up  to  its  own  repre- 
sentations ;  that  the  world  is  mirrored  in  each  consciousness,  and 
that  the  pictures  of  it  in  different  minds  may  differ.  To  him  each 
mind's  knowledge  of  the  external  world  should  mean  the  presence 
in  it  of  such  a  picture  —  of  such  and  such  mental  elements 
arranged  in  such  and  such  ways.  He  can  then  set  before  himself 
the  difficult  but  perfectly  definite  task  of  discovering  just  the 
elements  present  in  a  consciousness,  and  the  method  of  their 
arrangement.  He  may  describe  the  building  up  of  a  conscious- 
ness, and  may  relate  everything  in  it  to  the  system  of  real  things 
in  an  intelligible  way.  His  work  is,  in  a  real  sense  of  the  word, 
scientific,  and  resembles  closely  what  scientific  men  are  trying  to 
do  in  other  fields.  It  does  not  demand  metaphysical  reflection. 
The  best  results  are  to  be  obtained  in  psychology,  I  feel  sure,  by 
holding  firmly  to  this  scientific  standpoint. 

It  is  true  that  this  position  is  not  taken  by  all  psychologists, 
or  even  by  all  psychologists  who  give  abundant  evidence  that  they 
are  deeply  influenced  in  much  of  their  work  by  the  spirit  and 
the  methods  of  modern  scientific  investigation.  Such  men  may 
object,  as  some  do  object,  that  in  starting  with  such  a  view  of  the 
mind  we  are  starting  with  a  rather  complicated  theory,  and  not 
merely  with  a  number  of  observed  facts.  A  science,  they  may 
maintain,  should  result  in  a  theory,  not  begin  with  one.  The 
objection  seems  plausible,  but  I  think  it  is  sufficiently  answered 
by  saying  that,  in  accepting  the  psychological  standpoint,  we  are 


The  Inadequacy  of  the  Psychological  Standpoint      29 

starting  with  what  appear  to  the  normal  mind,  untrained  in  meta- 
physical reflection,  to  be  facts,  and  deserving  of  acceptance  as 
such  ;  that  until  one  has  made  some  progress  in  the  investigation 
of  these,  it  is  not  clear  what  one  should  accept  as  ultimately  true 
and  what  one  should  reject  as  misconception  ;  and  that,  here  as 
everywhere,  that  method  of  investigation  is  the  best  which 
accomplishes  the  best  results  with  the  minimum  expenditure  of 
energy. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  man  who  recognizes  a  sensation  as  a  sen- 
sation, with  all  that  that  implies,  is  not  performing  the  relatively 
simple  operation  of  being  conscious  of  that  sensational  content,  ab- 
stracted from  all  else.  He  is  really  relating  this  content  to  the  sys- 
tem of  his  experiences  in  rather  a  complicated  way.  Butmen  perform 
such  operations  long  before  they  have  heard  of  psychology,  and  in 
building  up  the  system  of  relatively  exact  knowledge  which  we 
call  a  special  science,  it  is  not  necessary  to  begin  at  the  very  begin- 
ning. We  may  presuppose  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  those  to  whom  we  speak  and  for  whom  we  write.  If  every 
science  had  to  justify  all  its  assumptions  before  it  proceeded  with 
its  special  investigations,  scientific  treatises  would  have  to  be 
provided  with  prolegomena  containing  a  mass  of  introductory 
matter  which  most  authors  would  scarcely  be  in  a  position  to  fur- 
nish, which  most  readers  would  not  need,  and  which  many  even 
of  those  to  whom  the  body  of  the  book  was  sufficiently  intelligible, 
could  not  understand  at  all. 

Hence  the  psychologist  may  legitimately  begin  talking  at  the 
very  outset  of  an  external  world  and  of  sensations.  His  words 
will  not  be  unintelligible  even  to  a  beginner,  and  a  thorough 
analysis  of  the  conceptions  which  he  is  using  may  be  postponed  to 
some  more  convenient  season.  If  we  deny  the  psychologist  the 
right  to  proceed  upon  the  assumption  of  an  external  world  and 
of  minds  mirroring  it,  insisting  that  he  must  first  criticise  these 
conceptions,  where,  I  ask,  shall  we  draw  the  line  between  the  work 
of  the  psychologist  and  that  of  the  metaphysician  ?  If  we  refuse 
to  draw  any  such  line,  and  thus  to  recognize  the  latter  as  having 
a  field  of  his  own,  we  must  choose  between  two  alternatives : 
either  we  must  leave  a  number  of  very  interesting  questions  un- 
answered, or  we  must  burden  psychological  treatises  with  meta- 
physical disquisitions  which  have  no  necessary  connection  with 
the  matter  of  which  it  is  their  chief  purpose  to  treat,  and  with 


30  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

which  it  is  certainly  contrary  to  the  more  modern  usage  to  burden 
them. 

To  the  second  objection  mentioned  above  as  urged  against  the 
psychological  position  which  cuts  the  mind  off  from  a  direct 
knowledge  of  things  and  shuts  it  up  to  the  world  of  its  own  ideas, 
namely,  the  objection  that  the  mind  should  not  be  regarded  as 
thus  isolated,  but  should  be  conceived  as  directly  knowing,  in  the 
act  of  perception,  both  ideas  and  things  —  to  this  objection  it  is 
not  difficult  to  find  an  answer.  The  psychological  position  is,  as 
we  have  seen,  self-contradictory  ;  but  it  has  been  indicated  that 
the  contradiction  may  be  removed  by  a  restatement  which  leaves 
unaffected  any  psychological  truths  which  have  been  established 
by  the  accepted  psychological  methods  of  investigation.  I  shall 
try  to  show  later  how  one  may  set  about  the  removal  of  this  con- 
tradiction, and  thus  prove  that  psychological  truths  really  are 
truths,  and  are  worthy  of  our  acceptance.  It  will,  I  hope,  become 
clear  that  the  psychologist  really  describes  the  facts  of  our  expe- 
rience, and  that  his  statements,  properly  understood,  are  not  con- 
tradicted by  those  facts. 

But  such  a  justification  of  the  psychologist  cannot  be  found  in 
the  attempt  to  improve  upon  his  position  by  distinguishing  as  he 
does  between  ideas  and  things,  regarding  ideas  as,  in  a  sense, 
representative  of  things,  and  some  ideas  as  more  or  less  like  the 
things  they  represent,  and  then  granting  the  mind  a  direct  knowl- 
edge of  the  thing,  as  well  as  of  its  representative  idea  —  placing 
idea  and  thing,  so  to  speak,  side  by  side  before  it.  It  is  within 
the  reach  of  every  man  to  satisfy  himself  of  the  error  of  this  posi- 
tion, for  it  is  refuted  by  his  simplest  experiences.  If  consciousness 
testifies  to  anything  clearly  and  unmistakably,  it  is  to  the  fact  that 
we  do  not,  under  normal  circumstances,  see  things  thus  doubled. 
The  inkstand  in  front  of  me  I  see.  I  see  only  one.  It  appears 
to  be  out  in  front  of  my  body  in  real  space.  Is  there  also  a  copy 
of  it  somewhere  else?  perhaps,  within  my  body?  I  perceive 
nothing  of  the  sort.  I  have  never  perceived  any  kind  of  an  ink- 
stand, whether  original  or  representative,  within  my  body.  If  I 
press  upon  the  sides  of  my  eyeballs  in  the  manner  before  alluded 
to,  I  perceive  two  inkstands,  and  I  can  make  both  of  these  dance 
about.  Are  there  now  in  my  experience  two  originals  and  one 
image,  or  two  images  and  one  original  ?  I  perceive  nothing  save 
the  two  inkstands,  apparently  of  the  same  nature,  which  are  both 


The  Inadequacy  of  the  Psychological  Standpoint      31 

in  motion.  If  it  be  insisted  that  there  is  but  one  real  inkstand 
before  me,  and  that  that  one  remains  at  rest,  I  answer,  that  this 
fact,  if  assented  to  by  me,  must  be  assented  to  as  a  consequence  of 
a  process  of  reasoning,  for  it  is  certainly  not  given  within  my 
immediate  experience.  I  simply  do  not  see  anything  of  the  kind. 
It  is  only  the  philosopher,  or  the  man  whose  mind  has  been  per- 
verted by  intercourse  with  such,  that  can  so  impose  upon  his 
senses  as  to  seem  to  himself,  when  he  gazes  upon  a  material 
object  in  front  of  him,  to  be  conscious  both  of  a  copy  and  of 
an  original. 

This  doctrine,  moreover,  if  taken  up  seriously  into  psychology, 
must  be  productive  of  much  perplexity  and  distress.  It  must  para- 
lyze the  ordinary  activities  of  the  psychologist  much  as  an  incur- 
sion of  the  barbarians  paralyzed  the  wonted  industries  of  a  busy 
and  peaceful  community.  The  psychologist  enters,  for  example, 
upon  a  laborious  description  of  the  way  in  which  a  mind,  by  putting 
together  and  arranging  the  messages  reaching  it  through  the 
senses,  builds  up  a  more  and  more  complete  and  satisfactory  repre- 
sentation of  an  external  world  of  things.  He  discusses  the  various 
elements  of  which  such  a  consciousness  must  consist,  limits  the 
knowledge  of  the  mind  concerned  to  the  materials  which  have 
been  furnished  to  it,  and  holds  that  if  any  one  class  of  elements 
be  lacking,  the  mind's  knowledge  of  the  world  will  be  correspond- 
ingly defective.  But  here  is  a  doctrine  which  grants  the  mind  a 
direct  knowledge  of  external  things  independently  of  the  existence 
in  it  of  such  a  representative  image.  Of  what  importance,  then, 
is  the  image,  and  what  does  it  matter  whether  it  be  defective  or 
not  ?  The  mind  will  know  things  just  the  same,  whether  it  has 
ideas  of  things  or  lacks  them,  and  the  function  of  ideas  in  knowing 
is  not  apparent.  Upon  this  supposition  a  mind  could  conceivably 
know  the  external  world  and  comprehend  its  properties  and  its 
happenings  without  having  any  ideas  at  all.  Surely  the  psycholo- 
gist must  stand  aghast  at  such  a  possibility.  What  has  become  of 
his  doctrine  of  the  senses,  of  the  conveyance  of  nervous  impulses 
to  the  brain,  of  the  elaboration  of  the  impressions  received,  of 
the  gradual  emergence  of  a  knowledge  of  things  ?  And  how,  on 
such  a  basis,  can  the  psychologist  explain  the  possibility  of  being 
deceived  about  the  natures  of  things  ?  How  explain  an  hallucina- 
tion ?  If,  in  perception,  there  were  immediately  present  to  the 
mind,  in  addition  to  the  image,  also  the  thing  represented  by  the 


32  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

image,  no  mistake  as  to  the  objective  reality  of  the  experience 
would  be  possible. 

The  fact  is  that  this  doctrine  simply  cuts  away  the  foundations 
of  the  science  of  psychology  as  it  at  present  exists.  This  is  not 
the  direction  in  which  we  must  look  for  a  way  of  escape  from 
the  difficulty  which  seems  to  confront  us  when  we  occupy  the 
psychological  standpoint.  For  an  indication  of  the  right  path 
I  shall  ask  the  reader  to  wait  a  little,  and,  in  the  meantime,  I 
shall  ask  him  to  believe  that  the  psychological  standpoint  is  not 
without  its  justification,  even  if  it  cannot  be  regarded  as  final. 


CHAPTER   III 
HOW  THINGS  ARE   GIVEN  IN  CONSCIOUSNESS 

FROM  what  has  already  been  said  it  should  be  plain  that  he 
who  would  subject  the  world  of  his  experiences  to  reflective  analy- 
sis must  begin  his  labors  with  an  examination  of  the  world  in 
which  he  seems  to  find  himself  —  the  world  of  common  thought  and 
common  sense.  In  his  attempt  at  critical  reconstruction  he  must 
use  the  material  at  hand ;  and  he  must  employ  words  and  phrases, 
in  communicating  his  thought,  which  are  the  common  property  of 
the  race,  and  which  have  been  coined  for  the  purpose  of  making 
distinctions  recognized  by  men  generally,  and  not  those  which  may 
come  to  be  marked  by  the  more  reflective.  The  metaphysician  is 
a  man,  like  other  men,  and  may  easily  be  misled  into  accepting  as 
final,  merely  because  he  is  accustomed  to  them,  ways  of  thinking 
which  sorely  need  revision  ;  and  since  he  is  compelled  to  take 
language  as  he  finds  it,  and  do  his  best  with  a  decidedly  imperfect 
instrument,  he  may  easily  be  misunderstood  when  he  is  not  really 
at  fault. 

It  is  necessary  for  me  to  emphasize  the  last  point,  at  this  stage 
of  my  discussion,  because  I  propose  in  this  chapter  to  examine  how 
things  are  given  in  consciousness.  This  expression  may  easily  give 
rise  to  misconception.  It  may  be  taken  to  mean,  and  by  the  man 
who  occupies  the  psychological  standpoint  it  will  most  naturally 
be  taken  to  mean,  that  I  intend  to  describe  certain  impressions, 
made  by  an  external  world  quite  beyond  consciousness,  upon  a 
particular  mind. 

But  the  criticisms  contained  in  the  last  chapter  have,  I  hope, 
made  it  evident  that  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  anything  is 
literally  u  given  "  to  consciousness  in  this  way.  If  we  really  do 
find  ourselves  in  an  external  world,  and  have  any  reason  at  all  for 
admitting  its  existence,  it  must  itself  be  "given  in  consciousness" 
in  some  sense  of  the  words,  and  it  only  remains  for  us  to  discover 
in  what  sense.  This  inquiry  I  shall  relegate  to  certain  chapters 


34  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

farther  on  in  this  work.  Meanwhile,  I  ask  the  reader  to  follow 
me  in  marking  certain  distinctions  in  our  way  of  being  conscious 
of  things,  which,  if  clearly  grasped,  will  be  of  no  small  service 
in  helping  us  to  approach  the  task  intelligently. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  recognize  that  what  is  "  given 
in  consciousness  "  may  be  given  in  consciousness  in  very  different 
ways.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  distinction  between  that  of 
which  we  are  conscious  vaguely  and  indefinitely,  and  that  of  which 
we  have  a  distinct  and  analytic  consciousness.  Of  this  distinction 
even  the  unscientific  man  cannot  be  wholly  ignorant,  and  it  has 
been  discussed  at  great  length  by  the  psychologist.  No  one  pre- 
tends to  recognize  singly  all  the  elements  that  enter  into  that 
highly  complex  mass  of  sensations  which  gives  information  of  the 
various  parts  of  the  body.  The  man  who  gazes  upon  a  landscape, 
and  enjoys  both  the  beauty  of  the  scene  and  the  manifold  associa- 
tions to  which  it  gives  rise,  knows  that  he  cannot  enumerate  off- 
hand all  of  the  elements  which  enter  into  his  mental  state  and 
attribute  to  each  its  relative  importance. 

The  stream  of  our  conscious  life  does  not  consist  as  a  whole  of 
sharply  distinguished  parts,  although  certain  portions  of  it  from 
time  to  time  stand  out  distinctly  from  the  rest  and  are  known  in  a 
much  more  satisfactory  way  than  are  the  other  parts.  It  is  like  a 
picture  with  a  few  clear  figures  which  detach  themselves  more  or 
less  vividly  from  a  dark  and  indefinite  background  ;  a  picture 
peculiar  in  the  fact  that  the  figures  which  thus  reveal  themselves 
clearly  keep  changing,  growing  brighter  or  fading  away  and  giv- 
ing place  to  others ;  a  picture  ever  varying,  yet  retaining  in  its 
general  outlines  the  character  which  it  had  before.  The  fluctua- 
tions in  the  clearness  with  which  given  elements  stand  out  from 
the  rest  are  to  some  extent  dependent  upon  our  own  volition.  By 
attending  to  this  element  or  that  we  give  it  a  greater  prominence, 
and  drag  it,  as  it  were,  into  the  light.  The  vague  feeling  of  bodily 
discomfort  may  lead  a  man  to  notice  that  the  chair  upon  which  he 
is  sitting  must  be  an  unusually  hard  one,  or  that  his  foot  has  been 
drawn  up  under  him  in  a  cramped  and  unnatural  position.  The 
traveller  viewing  the  landscape  may  deliberately  single  out  certain 
features  as  especially  pleasing,  or  consciously  dwell  upon  some 
other  scone,  recalled  by  this  one,  and  recognize  it  as  largely  account- 
ing for  the  emotion  which  inspires  him.  The  importance  of  th<.' 
part  played  in  our  conscious  life  by  its  dimly  conscious  or  semicon- 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  35 

scious  elements  most  men  are  inclined,  from  a  lack  of  reflection, 
to  underestimate ;  but  the  fact  that  there  exist  in  consciousness  the 
two  kinds  of  elements,  and  also  that  elements  are  continually 
emerging  from  an  unnoticed  obscurity  and  taking,  for  a  time,  a 
position  in  the  foreground  of  consciousness,  where  their  character 
and  their  relations  to  other  elements  may  be  clearly  discerned  — 
these  things  are  admitted  by  all. 

Reflection  upon  the  foregoing  makes  it  easy  to  assent  to  the 
statement  that  it  is  difficult  to  know  what  the  contents  of  con- 
sciousness really  are.  It  seems  at  first  sight  absurd  to  maintain 
that  a  man  does  not  know  all  that  he  is  conscious  of;  and  yet 
there  is  a  sense  of  the  words  in  which  the  statement  is  strictly 
true.  The  verb  to  know  may  be  given  more  than  one  meaning.  If 
we  choose  to  take  it  in  a  very  broad  and  loose  sense,  we  may  say 
that  we  undoubtedly  know  everything  that  exists  in  consciousness, 
however  dimly  it  may  exist.  We  are,  of  course,  conscious  of  every- 
thing in  consciousness  —  the  statement  is  purely  tautological — and 
we  may,  if  we  please,  call  this  knowing  it.  But  when  we  speak  of 
knowing  a  thing,  we  ordinarily  mean  that  we  know  it  with  some 
degree  of  clearness  and  definiteness.  We  mean  that  we  can  hold 
it  up  before  the  attention  and  scrutinize  it,  marking  its  peculiari- 
ties and  distinguishing  it  from  other  things. 

The  differences  in  the  clearness  with  which  things  are  known 
are  not  accurately  determined  by  the  unscientific,  and  the  fact 
that  there  are  such  differences  is  apt  to  be  overlooked.  But  when 
we  have  come  to  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  in  great  part,  the 
contents  of  consciousness  lie  in  obscurity,  that  the  different  ele- 
ments do  not  stand  out  from  their  background,  and  that  they  offer 
no  little  resistance  to  the  attempt  to  bring  them  into  the  light,  we 
can  understand  that  the  task  of  the  psychologist  is  not  an  easy 
one.  We  cannot  expect  him  to  sit  down  and  draw  up  without 
further  ado  an  inventory  of  the  elements  in  his  conscious  experi- 
ence. When  he  attempts  to  describe  for  us  what  he  finds  "given 
in  consciousness,"  he  is  in  no  little  danger  of  mixing  truth  with 
error,  and  he  needs  to  be  endowed  both  with  caution  and  with  dis- 
cernment. 

For  example,  the  man  who  watches  the  diminishing  speck 
which  represents  a  vessel  fading  away  on  the  horizon,  reaches  a 
point  at  which  he  is  uncertain  whether  he  still  sees  the  vessel  or 
not.  He  does  not  experience  a  moment  of  clear  vision,  imme- 


36  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

diately  followed  by  one  in  which  the  object  is  clearly  recognized 
as  absent.  He  experiences  a  series  of  gradual  changes  in  which 
certainty  passes  into  uncertainty,  definiteness  into  indefiniteness. 
He  continues  to  look,  thinks,  at  one  moment  that  he  still  sees  the 
thing,  at  the  next  moment  that  he  does  not,  and  at  still  the  next 
believes  that  he  sees  it  again.  In  a  legitimate  sense  of  the  words, 
he  does  not  know  what  is  in  his  own  mind  —  whether  he  is  ex- 
periencing a  sensation  or  whether  he  is  not. 

Sensations  may  be  vivid  and  unmistakably  present ;  but  they 
may,  on  the  other  hand,  approach  the  border  line  at  which  they 
fade  out  altogether,  and  their  existence  may  easily  be  overlooked. 
The  man  who  is  quite  sure  that  a  hand  has  been  laid  upon  his 
shoulder,  may  be  unable  to  decide  whether  he  has  or  has  not  been 
touched  by  a  feather.  There  is  no  class  of  experiences  which  may 
not  occupy  this  dim  region  of  consciousness.  A  man  may  be  in 
doubt  whether  he  is  hungry.  He  may  be  in  doubt  whether  he 
is  pleased.  He  may  seriously  debate  whether  he  is  still  angry ; 
and  he  may  wonder  whether  he  is  still  in  love.  Some  experiences 
in  consciousness,  even  when  they  are  present  as  vividly  as  it  is 
possible  for  them  to  be,  remain  curiously  vague  and  elusive.  We 
may  be  strongly  moved,  and  yet  realize  that  it  is  quite  impossible 
for  us  to  describe  in  detail  our  emotion,  although  we  dimly  feel 
it  to  be  a  voluminous  and  a  complex  thing. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  important  to  recognize  that  it  is  one 
thing  to  be  "  given  in  consciousness  "  directly,  and  another  thing 
to  be  "  given  in  consciousness "  indirectly  and  by  means  of  a 
memory-image.  In  our  endeavors  to  make  a  careful  analysis  of 
what  is  given  in  consciousness,  we  must  hold  this  or  that  experi- 
ence in  the  focus  of  attention ;  and  in  a  vast  number  of  instances 
what  is  thus  held  in  the  focus  of  attention  must  be  the  memory- 
image  of  the  experience  it  is  desired  to  analyze,  and  not  the  ex- 
perience itself. 

The  man,  for  example,  who  is  in  a  towering  passion  is  in  no 
condition  to  analyze,  or  even  to  attempt  to  analyze,  the  content  of 
his  consciousness  at  the  time.  This  he  can  do  only  when  he  has 
grown  cool  enough  to  reflect,  and  when  he  has  grown  cool  enough 
to  reflect  he  has,  of  course,  nothing  left  to  work  upon  but  the 
memory  of  his  rage.  Upon  the  general  trustworthiness  of  memory 
all  science  must  rest,  and  yet  it  must  be  recognized  that  everything 
that  presents  itself  as  a  true  memory-image  should  not  ipso  facto 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  37 

be  accepted  as  such.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  one  experience  must 
be  corrected  by  another,  and  the  truth  must  be  arrived  at  as  the 
result  of  a  systematic  investigation.  Every  thoughtful  man  is 
aware  of  the  fact  that,  in  the  endeavor  to  recall  a  given  scene,  he 
can  be  even  reasonably  sure  only  of  the  more  striking  elements, 
which  impressed  him  vividly  at  the  time  when  he  viewed  it ;  that 
he  is  in  no  small  danger  of  misapprehending  others ;  and  that  he 
may  easily  introduce  into  the  memory-image  elements  which  were 
not  present  in  any  form  in  the  original,  and  which  may  even  be 
taken  bodily  from  quite  other  scenes. 

Thus,  if  a  man  be  required  to  draw  the  plan  of  a  suite  of  rooms 
through  which  he  has  passed,  and  which  he  has  inspected,  it  will 
usually  be  found  that  his  sketch  resembles  in  some  respects  what 
he  has  seen,  but  in  others  does  not  truly  represent  it.  Doors  and 
windows  are  not  in  their  proper  positions ;  there  are  stretches  of 
unbroken  wall  in  the  plan  which  were  broken  in  the  original,  or 
vice  versa  ;  the  proportions  of  the  several  rooms  are  not  correct. 
The  man  has  not  reproduced  just  what  he  has  seen,  and  he  has 
not  reproduced  anything  which  was  in  his  imagination  at  the  time 
of  the  inspection.  Some  elements  in  his  representative  image  do 
not  truly  represent  anything  that  was  in  his  mind  before.  They 
are  products  of  the  creative  imagination,  not  memories. 

And  if  there  is  this  possibility  of  error  in  recalling  mental  ex- 
periences which  belong  to  that  province  of  our  mental  life  the 
objects  in  which  emerge  more  readily  from  obscurity  and  stand 
out  more  clearly  than  those  belonging  to  the  rest,  how  great  must 
be  the  danger  of  misrepresenting  in  memory  other  experiences, 
such  as  the  complex  emotions  of  anger  or  fear.  If  the  elements 
in  such  experiences  are  to  be  distinguished  from  one  another,  they 
must  be  brought  into  the  focus  of  attention  individually,  they 
must  be  held  in  the  foreground  of  consciousness  in  some  way. 
Yet  such  elements  primarily  occur  in  consciousness  as  an  almost 
undistinguishable  mass;  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  picking  them 
out  as  we  do  this  or  that  tree  in  the  landscape  before  us.  We 
rather  feel  our  anger  than  know  it,  and  the  exigencies  of  practical 
life  do  not  compel  us  to  pay  attention  to  its  elements  as  they  do 
force  us  to  notice  the  individual  material  objects  that  constitute 
a  group. 

This  brings  me  to  a  third,  and  a  very  important,  consideration. 
It  is  clear  that  when  we  endeavor  to  attain  to  a  clear,  analytic 


38  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

knowledge  of  the  content  of  some  experience  that  we  have  had, 
we  are  not  merely  trying  to  reproduce  that  experience  in  the 
memory  with  fidelity  and  accuracy.  The  accurate  reproduction 
of  a  vague  and  confused  state  of  consciousness  can  only  be  a  vague 
and  confused  state  of  consciousness.  We  do  not  seek  to  gain  a 
mere  reproduction  ;  what  we  seek  to  gain  is  a  representative  which, 
although  it  must  be  a  true  representative,  must  nevertheless  differ 
in  important  respects  from  the  experience  for  which  it  stands. 
Reflective  thought  does  not  merely  reproduce  common  thought  ; 
it  analyzes  it,  breaking  up  complexes  into  their  elements,  and 
making  those  elements  stand  out  independently,  with  fictitious 
clearness. 

The  plain  man  thinks  in  complexes,  and  gives  himself  little 
conscious  effort  to  analyze  them.  He  sees  a  man  before  him,  and 
although  he  is  quite  able  to  distinguish,  if  asked  to  do  so,  between 
the  visual  experience  which  he  actually  has  and  other  possible 
visual  experiences  of  the  same  object,  as  also  between  all  his  visual 
experiences  and  his  tactual,  yet  he  does  not,  until  he  is  led  to  do 
so  by  the  psychologist,  reflect  upon  and  clearly  realize  the  complex 
nature  of  this  percept  and  of  all  others,  or  attempt  to  enumerate 
the  elements  which  enter  into  such.  He  does  not  distinguish 
what  is  in  the  sense  from  what  is  in  the  imagination,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  for  him  to  do  so.  He  can  touch  the  man  if  he  wants  to, 
and  it  is  nothing  to  him  whether  the  tactual  qualities  of  the 
thing  he  sees  are  what  philosophers  call  "  actual "  or  what  they 
call  "potential."  He  uses  his  percept  as  he  uses  his  food.  He 
leaves  it  to  some  one  else  to  analyze  it. 

So  also  he  agrees  to  meet  us  at  a  certain  place  at  a  given  time, 
and  his  thought  is  sufficiently  definite  to  be  useful.  He  can  find 
the  place  at  the  time  appointed,  but  he  cannot  tell  exactly  what 
he  means  either  by  space  or  time.  It  is  quite  possible  to  employ 
with  a  good  deal  of  accuracy  a  given  mental  state,  without  having 
any  such  distinct  consciousness  of  its  component  parts  as  to  be 
able  to  enumerate  them.  We  all  know  things  and  do  things  with- 
out, as  we  express  it,  knowing  how  we  know  them  and  do  them. 

But  it  is  evident  that  even  in  common  thought  there  is  always 
going  on  an  analytic  procedure  of  a  certain  kind,  and  determined 
by  practical  needs.  It  would  be  quite  impossible  for  a  man  to 
compare  two  material  things  and  discover  that  they  are  in  some 
respects  similar  and  in  some  dissimilar,  were  it  not  possible  for 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  39 

him  to  distinguish,  in  at  least  a  vague  way,  between  the  several 
aspects  or  elements  of  the  things  in  question.  When  a  man  looks 
at  two  trees  and  sees  that  they  are  of  equal  height  but  contrasted 
in  color,  he  has  distinguished  with  some  clearness  between  the 
elements  of  form  and  color.  Could  he  not  do  this,  he  might  dimly 
recognize  two  trees  as  alike  or  as  unlike,  but  he  could  not  point 
out  the  elements  which  determine  the  similarity  or  the  dissimilar- 
ity. Nor  is  it  possible  to  comprehend  how  any  man  can  compre- 
hend the  thought  contained  in  a  page  of  any  ordinary  book  unless 
we  recognize  that  words  can  mean  something  to  him  without 
standing  for  individual  objects,  as  we  usually  understand  that 
term.  The  elements  of  consciousness  for  which  they  stand  may 
be  something  too  simple  and  fragmentary  to  constitute  pictures,  to 
form  what  have  been  so  happily  termed  the  "  substantive  "  parts 
of  consciousness;  but  these  elements  must  obtain  some  sort  of 
individual  recognition,  however  fleeting  and,  for  reflective  thought, 
unsatisfactory  that  recognition  may  be. 

When  we  say,  therefore,  that  the  plain  man  uses  his  mental 
complexes  without  analyzing  them,  the  statement  needs  modifica- 
tion. He  does  not  analyze  them  consciously  and  with  a  deliberate 
view  to  a  clearer  comprehension  of  the  elements  which  compose 
them,  but  he  does  analyze  them  instinctively  and  automatically, 
impelled  by  practical  needs.  Those  things  which  come  into  the 
foreground  of  his  consciousness  and  occupy  his  attention,  are  not 
whole  objects,  but  rather  aspects  and  elements  of  objects  —  just 
what  reflection  strives  to  obtain  a  clear  view  of.  The  man  who 
scrutinizes  a  newly  purchased  desk  runs  his  eye  over  every  part  of 
it ;  he  marks  its  length,  its  breadth,  its  color ;  he  finds  it  too  high 
or  too  low,  or  remarks  with  satisfaction  that  he  can  write  on  it 
with  comfort.  These  aspects  of  it  occupy  his  mind  successively, 
and  not  simultaneously. 

There  is,  however,  a  very  important  difference  between  such  an 
analysis  of  mental  complexes  and  a  distinguishing  of  their  separate 
elements  as  unavoidably  takes  place  in  all  thinking,  and  the  delib- 
erate analysis  of  reflective  thought.  In  the  former,  although  cer- 
tain elements  do  enter  the  foreground  of  consciousness,  and  receive, 
for  a  moment,  something  like  individual  attention,  yet  their  prom- 
inence is  but  momentary,  it  is  means  and  not  end,  and  the  mind 
passes  on  to  something  else  without  attempting  to  determine 
clearly  what  has  taken  place.  The  elements  upon  which  attention 


40  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

is  fixed  do  not  occupy  the  mind  to  the  exclusion  of  others  ;  they 
merely  enjoy  a  relatively  greater  prominence.  It  is  not  possible 
either  to  see  or  to  imagine  the  length  of  a  table  quite  by  itself. 
What  one  sees  or  imagines  is  something  much  more  complex,  and 
the  fixing  of  attention  upon  the  element  of  length  does  not  banish 
the  others,  but  merely  throws  momentarily  an  added  ray  of  light 
upon  this  one.  With  our  best  efforts  we  cannot  hold  it  perma- 
nently before  the  mind  in  this  way,  nor  can  we  attain  to  such  a 
clear  consciousness  of  it  as  we  seem  to  obtain  of  certain  groups  of 
elements  taken  as  groups.  We  may  thus  fail  to  recognize  what 
has  actually  taken  place,  and  may  even  deny  that  the  mind  has  in 
any  way  singled  out  separate  elements  and  made  them  the  object 
of  special  attention.  It  is  easy  to  see,  in  following  the  nominalistic 
utterances  of  such  writers  as  Berkeley  and  Hume,  that  it  was  this 
impossibility  of  holding  before  the  mind  as  clear  images  the  ele- 
ments singled  out  in  the  rapid  analysis  which  takes  place  in  all 
comparison  of  objects,  that  led  them  to  deny  the  possibility  of 
abstraction  in  any  form  whatever.  The  mind  does  not  rest  in 
abstractions,  but  rather  in  a  somewhat  diffused  consciousness  of 
groups  of  elements,  and  it  finds  it  as  difficult  to  describe  the  path  of 
its  rapid  flight  from  group  to  group,  as  does  the  man  who  has  tied 
his  shoes  to  describe  the  motions  that  he  has  made  during  that 
operation. 

But  reflection  upon  our  mental  processes  makes  it  evident  that 
mental  elements  quite  incapable  by  themselves  of  forming  pictures 
are  singled  out  by  the  attention  and  become  determinative  of  men- 
tal constructions  of  many  sorts.  Not  only  is  it  clear  that  this 
must  be  so,  if  objects  and  aspects  of  objects  are  to  be  compared 
with  each  other,  as  they  certainly  are  compared  with  each  other, 
and  if  the  structure  of  a  language  is  to  be  comprehensible ;  but  we 
find  in  a  less  obscure  field  of  our  experience  a  similar  procedure 
which  makes  it  not  difficult  to  comprehend  what  must  take  place 
in  such  cases  as  are  under  discussion. 

It  is  recognized  by  every  one  that  all  the  objects  in  conscious- 
ness do  not  stand  out  with  equal  vividness ;  and  though  there  may 
be  a  dispute  as  to  what  is  actually  in  my  mind  when  I  fix  attention 
upon  the  length  or  the  color  of  the  pen  which  I  hold  in  my  hand, 
no  one  will  dispute  that  the  pen  as  a  whole,  so  long  as  it  is  an 
object  of  attention,  is  singled  out  from  the  other  contents  of  con- 
sciousness and  stands  forth  with  a  certain  prominence.  The  fact 


How   Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  41 

that  there  is  a  difference  between  a  clear  and  a  vague  conscious- 
ness of  things,  the  fact  that  there  may  be  various  degrees  of 
clearness,  and  the  fact  that  all  those  things  which  constitute  the 
consciousness  of  a  single  moment  are  not  perceived  with  equal 
clearness,  are  generally  admitted.  But  if  we  can  thus  distinguish 
between  the  objects  of  consciousness,  singling  out  some  from  others 
and  bringing  them  into  the  focus  of  attention,  is  it  not  easily  com- 
prehensible that  the  mind,  by  an  analogous  procedure,  should  single 
out  certain  elements  of  these  objects  from  other  elements  and 
recognize  their  presence  individually  in  a  somewhat  similar  way  ? 
That  these  elements  cannot  singly  be  held  before  the  mind  as  pic- 
tures in  no  way  invalidates  the  argument. 

The  man  who  reasons  thus  may  next  have  recourse  to  direct 
introspection.  When  he  looks  at  his  pen  and  distinguishes  it 
from  other  things,  he  is  conscious  that  he  singles  it  out  and  makes 
it  stand  forth  from  its  background  in  an  individual  way.  And 
when  he  fixes  attention  upon  the  length  of  the  pen,  abstracting  for 
the  time  being  from  its  other  aspects,  he  must  feel  that  something 
analogous  is  taking  place.  When  attention  is  diffused  over  the 
pen  as  a  whole  (a  somewhat  loose  expression,  but  expressive  of  a 
truth),  the  background  upon  which  it  is  seen  does  not  disappear 
from  consciousness.  It  simply  lies  in  a  comparative  obscurity. 
And  when  attention  is  fixed  upon  the  length  of  the  pen,  the  other 
elements  which  go  to  constitute  the  object  do  not  disappear  from 
consciousness ;  they  only  suffer  a  partial  eclipse,  they  withdraw 
momentarily  into  the  shade.  The  two  cases  are  not  wholly  dis- 
similar, the  difference  is  rather  one  of  degree  than  of  kind ;  and 
a  careful  attention  to  what  actually  takes  place  during  the  con- 
centration of  attention  upon  one  aspect  of  an  object,  accompanied 
by  an  effort  not  to  be  misled  by  a  preconceived  notion  derived  from 
the  nominalistic  philosophers,  or  by  a  false  expectation  of  being 
able  to  turn  a  single  element,  seized  in  a  fleeting  glance,  into  a 
relatively  permanent  image,  will  reveal  that  single  elements  of 
consciousness  (I  use  the  phrase  somewhat  loosely)  can  be  made  to 
stand  out  for  a  moment  from  those  accompanying  them,  and  may 
be  at  least  sufficiently  recognized  to  be  named  and  used  in  later 
reasonings. 

It  is  the  part  of  reflective  thought  to  seek  to  determine  such 
elements  with  some  degree  of  accuracy,  to  fix  them  by  the  use  of  a 
symbol,  and  to  obtain  as  exact  a  knowledge  as  may  be  of  the  inti- 


42  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

mate  structure  of  those  mental  complexes  which  we  all  use,  but 
which  we  do  not  all  analyze,  except  in  the  rudimentary  and  semi- 
conscious way  indicated  above.  To  common  thought  such  com- 
plexes present  themselves  usually  as  units  ;  the  fact  that  they  are 
really  analyzed  in  a  vague  and  inadequate  way,  even  in  common 
thought,  is  apt  to  be  overlooked.  The  procedure  of  reflective 
thought  in  separating  them  into  their  component  parts  appears  to 
be  unnatural,  a  juggling  with  mere  words.  And  in  a  sense,  such 
a  procedure  is  unnatural.  It  is  dealing  with  things  as  man  in  his 
primitive  simplicity,  or  even  as  man  endowed  with  merely  scien- 
tific culture,  does  not  deal  with  them.  It  is  eating  the  forbidden 
fruit,  and  results  in  expulsion  from  the  unreflective  paradise  in 
which  every  man  passes  his  youth,  and  in  which  most  men  bring 
to  an  end  their  declining  years. 

Thus  reflection  attempts  to  obtain  a  clear  and  detailed  knowl- 
edge of  the  contents  of  consciousness,  to  resolve  complexes  into 
their  constituent  parts,  and  to  recognize  these  parts  as  it  is  impos- 
sible for  common  thought  to  recognize  them.  The  task  is  suffi- 
ciently difficult,  and  it  is  evidently  quite  possible  that,  in  the 
endeavor  to  represent  to  one's  self  clearly  the  actual  content  of  this 
or  that  experience,  one  may  fall  into  serious  error.  The  experi- 
ence in  question  is  not  reproduced ;  it  is  represented  by  a  proxy, 
and  it  may  be  misrepresented.  In  approaching  such  a  reflective 
analysis  of  experience  there  are  certain  things  upon  which  it  is 
worth  while  to  lay  emphasis  at  the  outset. 

For  one  thing,  it  should  be  recognized  that,  just  because  of  the 
difference  that  obtains  between  common  thought  and  reflection, 
the  plain  man  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  satisfactory  witness  touch- 
ing the  things  which  are  to  be  found  in  his  own  experience,  when 
it  is  desired  to  obtain  such  a  knowledge  of  these  things  as  common 
thought  does  not  usually  furnish. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  a  man  may  agree  to  meet  us  at  a 
given  place  at  a  given  time,  and  may  keep  his  appointment,  without 
knowing  at  all  clearly  what  he  means  by  space  and  time.  He  has 
no  such  knowledge  of  these  as  the  reflective  man  wishes  to  obtain. 
When  questioned  he  often  gives  very  silly  answers ;  and  he  may 
make  statements  which  find  absolutely  no  justification  in  the  expe- 
riences which  he  has  had  and  which  he  is  endeavoring  more 
narrowly  to  determine.  Scientific  progress  is  not  attained  by  shov- 
elling together  opinions  and  counting  heads,  and  it  requires  some 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  43 

sagacity  to  know  what  sort  of  testimony  one  may  accept  in 
establishing  facts  of  a  particular  kind.  It  would  not  be  well  to 
accept  the  undivided  vote  of  the  continent  of  Africa  as  evidence 
of  error  on  the  part  of  a  handful  of  European  mathematicians. 

Nor  can  reflective  thought  accept  without  criticism,  as  giving 
a  satisfactory  account  of  the  elements  in  human  experience,  that 
crystallization  of  common  thought  which  we  call  language.  The 
latter  reflects  the  kind  of  thought  which  it  was  developed  to  express, 
and  however  well  adapted  to  its  purpose  it  may  be,  nay,  just 
because  it  is  well  adapted  to  its  purpose,  it  has  the  limitations  which 
we  might  justly  expect  to  find  in  it.  It  is  sufficiently  common  to 
appeal  both  in  psychology  and  in  philosophy  to  the  opinion  of  the 
plain  man  or  to  the  common  use  of  certain  words,  but  the  appeal 
must,  in  very  many  instances,  be  as  senseless  as  the  reference  of  a 
complicated  technical  question  to  the  decision  of  a  petit  jury.  If 
it  is  a  question  of  something  that  lies  within  the  province  of  reflec- 
tive thought,  the  man  who  does  not  reflect  will  probably  be  right 
only  by  accident.  It  goes  without  saying  that  both  the  opinion  of 
the  vulgar  and  the  thought  revealed  in  the  structure  of  a  language 
furnish  most  valuable  material  for  reflective  thought  to  work 
upon.  Men  may  have  experiences  even  if  they  cannot  analyze 
them,  and  their  inadequate  descriptions  of  those  experiences  may 
yield  to  others  some  indication  of  their  true  nature.  The  popular 
vote  is  not  valueless ;  it  is  simply  material  for  investigation. 

Again,  we  must  not  be  surprised  if  we  discover  to  be  composite 
and  analyzable  some  things  in  consciousness  that  common  thought 
is  inclined  to  regard  as  ultimate  and  simple. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  experiences  which  the  instinctive 
and  imperfect  analysis  of  the  unreflective  does  not  show  to  be  com- 
plex, may,  when  subjected  to  a  more  careful  and  thoroughgoing 
analysis,  turn  out  to  be  highly  complex.  For  the  purposes  of 
common  life  it  may  be  unnecessary  to  distinguish  with  any  degree 
of  clearness  between  the  elements  which  enter  into  these ;  and, 
as  we  have  seen,  such  analysis  as  is  found  in  common  thought 
has  its  limits  determined  by  practical  ends.  Hence,  it  is  unwise  to 
assume  a  given  experience  to  be  unanalyzable  just  because  it  presents 
itself  at  first  glance  under  this  aspect,  or  because  men  generally 
are  in  the  habit  of  so  regarding  it.  Any  experience  should  be 
regarded  as  really  simple  only  at  the  end  of  a  very  careful  investi- 
gation, and  after  the  application  of  every  direct  and  indirect  method 


44  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

known  to  reflection  in  the  effort  to  resolve  it  into  something  more 
simple.  Even  then,  the  conclusion  should  be  held  tentatively,  and 
there  should  be  a  readiness  to  change  one's  opinion  if  new  evidence 
is  forthcoming. 

Furthermore,  we  should  in  some  cases  be  content  to  arrive  at  our 
conclusions  as  the  result  of  a  process  of  deductive  reasoning,  and 
should  not  insist  upon  evidence  of  a  kind  which,  under  the  circum- 
stances, we  have  no  right  to  expect  to  obtain.  This  point  has  been 
touched  upon  a  little  above,  where  I  have  pointed  out  that  con- 
sciousness-elements, incapable  by  themselves  of  forming  pictures  in 
the  sense  or  in  the  imagination,  may  yet  be  singled  out  by  the 
attention  and  become  determinative  of  various  sorts  of  mental  con- 
structions. I  can  best  illustrate  my  position  by  quoting  from 
David  Hume,  that  arch-enemy  of  all  abstraction,  a  passage  marked 
by  his  characteristic  lucidity,  which,  however,  only  serves  to  reveal 
the  more  clearly  the  erroneous  nature  of  his  reasoning.  He  writes  : 

"  Thus,  when  a  globe  of  white  marble  is  presented,  we  receive 
only  the  impression  of  a  white  color  disposed  in  a  certain  form,  nor 
are  we  able  to  separate  and  distinguish  the  color  from  the  form. 
But  observing  afterwards  a  globe  of  black  marble  and  a  cube  of 
white,  and  comparing  them  with  our  former  object,  we  find  two 
separate  resemblances,  in  what  formerly  seemed,  and  really  is, 
perfectly  inseparable.  After  a  little  more  practice  of  this  kind,  we 
begin  to  distinguish  the  figure  from  the  color  by  a  distinction  of 
reason;  that  is,  we  consider  the  figure  and  color  together,  since 
they  are,  in  effect,  the  same  and  undistinguishable  ;  but  still  view 
them  in  different  aspects,  according  to  the  resemblances  of  which 
they  are  susceptible.  When  we  would  consider  only  the  figure  of 
the  globe  of  white  marble,  we  form  in  reality  an  idea  both  of  the 
figure  and  color,  but  tacitly  carry  our  eye  to  its  resemblance  with 
the  globe  of  black  marble  :  and  in  the  same  manner,  when  we  would 
consider  its  color  only,  we  turn  our  view  to  its  resemblance  with 
the  cube  of  white  marble.  By  this  means  we  accompany  our  ideas 
with  a  kind  of  reflection,  of  which  custom  renders  us,  in  a  great 
measure,  insensible.  A  person  who  desires  us  to  consider  the 
figure  of  a  globe  of  white  marble  without  thinking  on  its  color, 
desires  an  impossibility  ;  but  his  meaning  is,  that  we  should  con- 
sider tlie  color  and  figure  together,  but  still  keep  in  our  eye  the 
resemblance  to  the  globe  of  black  marble,  or  that  to  any  other 
globe  of  whatever  color  or  substance."1 

i  "  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,"  Book  I,  Part  I.  §  7. 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  45 

But  it  is  very  evident,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  that  such  a 
comparison  of  objects  would  be  impossible  were  they  not  analyzed 
into  their  elements,  dimly  and  momentarily  perhaps,  but  still  with 
sufficient  clearness  to  make  it  possible  to  recognize  these  elements  as 
entering  singly  into  certain  combinations.  If  the  figure  and  the  color 
of  the  globe  of  white  marble  really  remained  to  my  mind  "  the  same 
and  undistinguishable,"  it  is  inconceivable  that  I  should  be  able,  in 
comparing  this  object  with  another,  to  assert  that  it  was  similar  to 
it  in  one  respect  and  dissimilar  in  another.  What  can  the  phrases 
"  in  one  respect "  and  "  in  another  "  possibly  mean  when  we  are 
dealing  with  what  is  strictly  "  the  same  and  undistinguishable  "  ? 
If  form  and  color  are  really  undistinguishable,  then  any  object 
which  resembles  another  in  form  resembles  it  in  color  too,  for  the 
two  words  mean  the  same  thing,  if,  indeed,  they  have  any  meaning. 

Hume  has  recognized  as  existing  only  those  things  which  exist 
in  consciousness  as  pictures,  which  do  not  merely  stand  out  for 
a  fleeting  moment,  but  retain  their  position  of  prominence  long 
enough  to  force  upon  the  unreflective  a  recognition  of  their  exist- 
ence. And  since  single  aspects  of  the  complex  experience  he  is 
discussing  cannot  be  made  to  stand  out  in  this  way,  he  refuses  to 
recognize  their  existence  at  all.  I  have  indicated  above  that  one 
who  has,  by  reasoning,  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  such  expe- 
riences as  Hume  assumes  to  be  simple  must  be  complex,  and  that 
single  aspects  of  them  must  receive  some  sort  of  individual  recog- 
nition, may  in  some  instances  verify  his  conclusion  by  having 
recourse  to  introspection.  He  may  convince  himself  that  in  com- 
paring the  marble  objects  he  is  really  conscious  of  form  as  he  is  not 
of  color,  at  the  one  moment,  and  conscious  of  color  as  he  is  not  of 
form,  at  the  next.  But  the  utterances  of  consciousness,  thus 
directly  appealed  to,  are  not  so  clear  and  unambiguous  that  they 
may  not  be  misunderstood  ;  and,  in  certain  instances,  where  we  are 
dealing  with  what  is  highly  abstract,  it  may  be  impossible  to  have 
recourse  to  introspection  at  all.  Introspection  may,  thus,  support 
the  general  conclusions  arrived  at  by  processes  of  deductive  reason- 
ing, and  it  may  serve  to  show  that  our  method  is  a  correct  one ; 
but  it  cannot  be  expected  to  speak  with  as  clear  a  voice  as  Hume 
insisted  upon  hearing.  We  cannot  be  analytically  conscious  of  the 
many  resemblances  and  relations  of  which  a  perceived  object  is 
susceptible,  as  vividly  as  we  are  conscious  of  the  complex  out  of 
which  they  are  successively  singled.  But  it  is  quite  impossible  to 


46  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

explain  the  phenomena  of  our  mental  life  unless  the  existence  of 
these,  its  more  evanescent  aspects,  be  recognized. 

The  temptation  to  overlook  the  truth  here  insisted  upon  is  by  no 
means  so  great  to-day  as  it  was  at  an  earlier  time.  The  investiga- 
tions of  modern  psychology  have  made  it  very  evident  that  the 
contents  of  consciousness  are  perceived  with  varying  degrees  of 
clearness ;  and  have  also  revealed  that  what  has  been  called  the 
threshold  of  consciousness  is  not  a  line,  but  a  strip  of  territory,  a 
debatable  land  peopled  by  shades  which  have  a  real  though  a 
shadowy  being.  For  example,  the  subjects  who,  in  Professor 
Cattell's  experiments  on  the  perception  of  small  differences,  were 
given  the  task  of  judging  which  of  two  lights,  exhibited  at  a  brief 
interval,  was  the  brighter,  could  usually  distinguish  the  difference 
with  a  good  deal  of  clearness  when  it  really  was  a  considerable 
one,  and  with  less  clearness  when  it  was  smaller.  But  it  was 
found  that  even  where  the  subject  felt  that  he  was  making  a 
decision  at  a  venture,  and  doubted  whether  he  had  anything  at  all 
to  go  upon,  he  was  right  a  sufficient  number  of  times  to  reveal  that 
his  decisions  were  not  the  result  of  pure  chance.1  He  appeared  to 
be  determined  by  a  sense  of  difference  that  had  sunk  below  the 
level  of  clear  consciousness,  but  had  not  disappeared  from  con- 
sciousness altogether ;  a  sense  of  difference  which  still  retained 
sufficient  influence  to  bring  about  a  correct  decision  in  a  certain 
proportion  of  cases.  Of  course  it  would  be  rash  to  conclude  from 
this  that  every  difference,  however  minute,  in  the  external  stimuli, 
must  be  the  occasion  of  a  parallel  difference  in  the  corresponding 
sensations.  There  may  be  physical  differences  to  which  there  are 
no  corresponding  differences  in  physiological  function  and  psychical 
reaction.  The  limits  of  such  systems  still  lie  pretty  much  in  the 
dark.  But  we  have,  at  least,  warrant  for  assuming  that  the  limits 
of  such  systems  lie  beyond  the  point  at  which  one  ceases  to  have  a 
clear  and  unmistakable  consciousness  of  differences  in  sensation. 

A  good  illustration  of  the  method  of  arriving  by  deductive 
'reasoning  at  a  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  mental  elements 
which  do  not  present  themselves  in  a  clear  light  to  the  eye  of 
direct  introspection  is  furnished  by  an  investigation  into  the 
nature  of  similarity  or  likeness.  That  in  some  instances,  at  least, 
we  mean  by  similarity  nothing  more  nor  less  than  partial  identity 

1  "  On  the  Perception  of  Small  Differences,"  Philadelphia,  1892,  pp.  142-145;  see 
also  pp.  124-127. 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  47 

appears  sufficiently  evident.  When  we  look  at  two  buildings  and 
recognize  that  they  are  constructed  in  the  same  architectural  style, 
but  differ  from  each  other  more  or  less  in  the  manner  of  their 
ornamentation,  we  are  evidently  analyzing  the  buildings  into  their 
component  elements  and  recognizing  that  certain  of  these  elements 
are,  in  the  two  cases,  the  same  and  certain  are  different.  If  the 
differences  are  unimportant  in  comparison  with  the  identical 
elements,  we  declare  the  buildings  to  be  very  much  alike,  but  if 
the  contrary  is  the  case,  we  declare  them  to  be  but  little  alike. 
And  we  recognize  two  chairs  to  be  similar  when  both  are  provided 
with  rockers,  even  though  the  one  may  be  constructed  of  wood  and 
the  other  of  cane.  The  man  who  has  a  forehead  and  a  nose  like 
Napoleon  may  have  a  very  feeble  chin,  and  it  is  easy  for  us  to 
indicate  in  such  a  case  wherein  the  two  men  resemble  each  other 
and  wherein  they  do  not.  We  at  once  recognize  the  complexes 
we  are  comparing  to  be  complexes,  and  we  separate  them  by 
analysis  into  their  component  parts,  distinguishing  clearly  between 
those  which  are  identical  and  those  which  are  different. 

Even  where  it  is  not  very  clearly  recognized  that  the  objects  to 
be  compared  are  complexes,  the  fact  may  be  virtually  recognized, 
the  elements  may  be  separately  named,  and  the  points  of  identity 
and  diversity  may  be  pointed  out  in  detail.  Such  was  the  case  in 
Hume's  illustration  of  the  marble  globes  and  the  marble  cube. 
Color  and  form  were  distinguished  from  each  other,  and  it  was 
seen  that  there  might  be  an  identity  in  the  one  element  and  a 
diversity  in  the  other.  The  critic  who  reads  Hume's  discussion 
can  see  that  he  treated  his  globes  and  his  cube  just  as  he  would 
have  treated  a  building,  a  chair,  or  a  human  face,  and  that  his 
conclusions  arise  from  the  fact  that  he  was  not  clearly  conscious  of 
his  own  mode  of  procedure.  There  can  be  no  legitimate  dispute 
now  as  to  what  took  place  in  his  mind. 

But  it  is  possible  to  cite  instances  of  a  more  doubtful  nature. 
For  example,  it  may  be  questioned,  and  is  questioned  by  some, 
whether  we  class  together  different  colors,  such  as  red  and  blue, 
because,  together  with  the  differences  which  distinguish  them, 
they  also  contain  identical  elements,  elements  not  to  be  found  in 
such  sensations  as  those  of  sound  or  taste ;  or  whether  we  treat 
them  in  this  way  merely  because  they  happen  to  be  sensations 
referred  to  the  same  bodily  organ. 

This  question  seems  to  find  a  sufficient  answer  in  the  fact  that 


48  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

within  the  province  of  any  one  sense  we  recognize  minor  classes, 
putting  together  and  distinguishing  from  each  other  various  kinds 
of  blues  and  various  kinds  of  reds.  These  minor  classes  cannot 
find  their  explanation  in  the  grouping  of  wholly  different  sensa- 
tions through  a  common  relation  to  a  single  sense-organ,  nor  can 
they  find  it  in  a  reference  to  some  one  physical  cause.  They  were 
made  before  anything  was  known  about  the  luminiferous  ether  and 
the  number  of  its  vibrations  per  second.  If  an  explanation  is  to 
be  found  for  them  at  all,  it  must  be  found,  as  it  seems,  in  the 
nature  of  the  sensations  themselves.  And  unless  we  take  refuge 
in  the  assumption  that  it  is  an  ultimate  fact,  to  be  accepted,  not 
explained,  that  we  compare  and  find  similar  but  not  wholly  iden- 
tical various  sensations  which  are  not  complex,  but  simple,  and 
cannot  present  different  elements  of  identity  and  difference,  we 
must  assume  that  our  mode  of  procedure  is  similar  to  that  in  the 
cases  described  above,  and  that  the  obscurity  of  the  question 
simply  arises  from  the  fact  that  we  have  passed  into  a  region  where 
all  things  are  obscure,  the  misty  region  between  clear  consciousness 
and  no  consciousness  at  all. 

The  assumption  that  we  have  arrived  at  what  is  ultimate  and 
inexplicable  is  either  one  made  provisionally  for  convenience  in 
certain  fields  of  psychological  work,  or  it  is  the  asylum  of  igno- 
rance —  the  refuge  to  which  a  man  betakes  himself  when  he  would 
rather  have  almost  any  settled  opinion  than  no  opinion  at  all. 
Certainly  it  is  not  justified  in  the  face  of  the  fact,  that  when  we 
are  investigating  cases  of  resemblance  in  a  region  in  which  the 
objects  in  consciousness  present  themselves  with  some  degree  of 
clearness,  we  find  resemblance  to  consist  in  partial  identity,  and 
of  the  added  fact  that  many  of  the  elements  of  our  conscious  life 
lurk  in  the  shade,  and  refuse  to  reveal  themselves  so  distinctly 
that  they  can  be  told  off  one  by  one  without  danger  of  error. 
Analogy  points  to  the  conclusion  that  the  same  explanation  may 
serve  here  which  showed  itself  to  be  the  true  one  in  other  instances. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  choice  of  the  one  word  "  sweet- 
ness "  to  describe  things  so  diverse  as  the  taste  of  sugar  and  the 
sound  of  a  human  voice  ;  or  of  the  word  "  brilliance  "  to  character- 
ize experiences  so  different  as  the  light  of  a  lamp  and  a  flight  of 
eloquence  ?  Is  there  any  element  of  identity  by  means  of  which 
such  experiences  are  grasped  and  classified? 

Of    course,  this  use  of   language   is    not   arbitrary ;    there    is 


How  Things  are  Given  in   Consciousness  49 

felt  to  be  a  certain  appropriateness  in  such  expressions  as  "  a  sweet 
voice,"  "  a  smooth  voice,"  "  a  brilliant  speech,"  "  an  inflated 
style,"  etc.  We  feel  that,  in  any  given  instance,  a  particular 
expression  is  the  suitable  one,  and  cannot  be  replaced  by  a  dif- 
ferent one  without  detriment  to  the  thought.  There  must  be 
something,  either  in  the  experiences  themselves,  or  in  the  relation 
which  they  bear  to  other  things,  to  justify  such  a  selection.  In 
the  instance  of  the  colors  there  seems  good  reason  to  believe  that 
the  bond  between  them  lies  in  an  identical  element  in  the  expe- 
riences themselves ;  at  least,  there  is  no  good  reason  to  believe 
that  this  is  not  the  case.  But,  in  the  other  instances  referred  to, 
the  more  reasonable  explanation  may  be  that  the  two  experiences 
between  which  we  remark  an  analogy  stand  in  a  common  relation 
to  something  else,  and  that  it  is  this  common  relation  that  we 
mark  by  the  use  of  the  expression  employed  in  description.  For 
example,  even  if  we  conclude  that  a  sweet  taste  and  a  sweet  voice 
have  no  common  element,  a  conclusion  which  we  should  not 
draw  hastily,  we  may  have  reason  to  believe  that  both  give  rise 
to  emotional  states  which  contain  such  an  element,  and  we  may 
discover  the  analog}7',  which  we  recognize,  to  be  an  instance  of 
partial  identity  after  all  —  of  partial  identity,  so  to  speak,  at  one 
remove.  •  It  is  quite  clear  that  things  may  resemble  each  other, 
not  merely  in  what  they  are  in  themselves,  but  also  in  their  relations 
to  other  things.  Two  trees,  in  themselves  not  unlike  each  other, 
may  also  be  alike  in  the  fact  that  they  are  equally  distant  from  a 
third  tree.  If  this  last  point  of  similarity  be  the  important  one 
for  the  purposes  of  any  special  bit  of  reasoning,  it  may  be  the  one 
to  be  singled  out  and  held  before  the  attention,  and  other  points 
of  resemblance  may  be  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed. 

This  analysis  of  the  nature  of  similarity  not  only  furnishes  a 
good  illustration  of  the  method  of  arriving,  by  deductive  reasoning, 
at  a  knowledge  of  the  existence  in  consciousness  of  elements 
which  do  not  reveal  themselves  clearly  and  unmistakably  to 
direct  introspection,  but  it  serves  to  bring  into  relief  the  true 
nature  of  thinking  by  the  aid  of  a  representative  or  symbol. 

The  distinction  between  what  is  "  given  in  consciousness  " 
intuitively  and  what  is  given  in  consciousness  only  by  means  of 
the  symbol  has  long  been  recognized,  and  it  is  one  of  which  no 
thoughtful  mind  can  be  wholly  ignorant.  It  is  simply  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  thing  itself  and  the  representative  of  it 


50  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

which,  we  choose  to  employ  or  may  be  compelled  to  employ  in 
dealing  with  it.  When  I  look  at  a  single  pebble  lying  before  me 
in  the  road,  I  am  clearly  conscious  of  it  as  one.  If,  however, 
I  collect  fifty  such,  and  spread  them  out  before  me,  I  cannot,  in 
looking  at  them,  be  conscious  of  the  whole  fifty,  as  I  was  con- 
scious of  the  one.  The  number  of  elements  that  can  stand  out 
clearly  in  consciousness  at  any  one  time  is  limited,  and  that 
number  is  here  exceeded.  It  is  true  that,  if  the  whole  number 
fall  well  within  my  field  of  vision,  I  may,  for  aught  I  know  to 
the  contrary,  be  dimly  conscious  of  the  whole  fifty  at  once. 
This  does  not  mean  that  I  am  conscious  of  them  as  fifty  —  as 
more  than  forty-nine  and  as  less  than  fifty-one.  To  be  conscious 
of  things  in  this  way  is  not  to  be  dimly  conscious  of  them. 
When  I  say  I  may  be  dimly  conscious  of  them  all  at  once,  I  mean 
only  that  there  may  be  dimly  present  in  consciousness  all  those 
distinctions  which,  could  they  be  more  clearly  marked,  would  be 
recognized  as  constituting  this  group  a  group  of  fifty  individuals. 
But  since  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  substitute  for  this  dim 
experience  a  clear  consciousness  of  fifty  individuals,  we  are 
forced  to  represent  it  by  a  symbol,  and  treat  the  symbol  as  though 
it  were  the  thing  itself. 

The  symbol  may,  of  course,  represent  any  aspect  of  the  thing 
with  which  we  have  to  deal ;  in  the  instance  given,  it  represents 
their  quantity  or  number.  A  system  of  symbols  may  become  ex- 
tremely complicated,  and  single  symbols,  or  whole  groups  of  them, 
may  represent,  not  merely  a  collection  of  things  which  can  only 
be  dimly  perceived  in  a  consciousness  at  any  one  time,  but  also 
what  cannot  be  directly  present  in  any  consciousness,  even  dimly. 
In  other  words,  much  of  our  knowledge  must  ever  remain  sym- 
bolic. It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  a  system  of 
symbols  cannot  be  a  purely  arbitrary  creation.  Symbols  must 
truly  represent  things,  or  some  aspect  of  things,  and  the  sole 
foundation  upon  which  they  rest,  the  sole  source  from  which  they 
obtain  their  meaning  and  worth,  is  the  intuitive  knowledge 
which  furnishes  us  with  a  direct  experience  of  things. 

It  is  of  no  little  importance  to  recognize  what  constitutes  the 
symbol  as  such.  We  frequently  speak  of  the  marks  which  the 
mathematician  makes  upon  his  paper  as  symbols,  but  a  little 
reflection  reveals  that  the  figures  themselves  are  merely  the 
"  Trager,"  the  arbitrary  carriers,  of  the  true  symbol,  the  mathe- 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  51 

matical  relation  which  it  is  desired  to  express.  They  are  the 
hooks  upon  which  it  is  convenient  to  hang  thoughts,  the  handles 
by  which  the  thoughts  may  be  grasped,  not  the  thoughts  them- 
selves. They  suggest  thoughts,  and  do  not,  properly  speaking, 
represent  them  at  all.  Their  whole  meaning  lies  outside  of 
themselves. 

In  a  broad  and  loose  sense  of  the  word  they  may  be  called 
symbols ;  and  it  is  certainly  possible,  by  their  aid,  to  deal  with 
complicated  experiences  in  a  way  in  which  it  would  be  impossible 
to  deal  with  them  directly ;  but  when  one  deals  merely  with 
figures,  and  performs  mechanically  various  operations  which  one 
has  learned  to  perform  without  insight  into  their  significance, 
one  can  only  by  way  of  courtesy  be  said  to  be  occupied  with 
mathematical  reasonings.  The  figure  6  may  suggest  six  objects, 
but  it  does  not  represent  them  as  a  short  line  may  represent  a 
long  one.  In  the  latter  case  some  of  the  elements  of  the  line 
represented  are  actually  present  in  the  representative  —  for  ex- 
ample, its  divisibility  into  parts,  or  the  nature  of  its  curve.  The 
mind  may  fix  attention  upon  these  points  of  similarit}^  and 
neglecting  the  differences,  may  observe  mathematical  relations 
with  a  vivid  sense  of  the  precise  nature  of  the  mental  operations 
which  it  is  performing.  It  may  then  carry  its  results  over  to 
the  longer  line  with  a  feeling  of  confidence  that  it  will  not  fall 
into  error,  since  its  representative  truly  represents  the  longer  line 
it  is  desired  to  determine,  in  the  only  qualities  which  enter  into 
the  question.  It  is  really  dealing,  not  with  a  short  line  and  a 
long  one,  but  with  certain  aspects  common  to  both  ;  and  in  using 
the  representative  as  it  does,  it  simply  employs  a  convenient 
device  for  holding  those  aspects  steadily  and  clearly  before  the 
mind.  The  short  line  does  not  as  a  whole  represent  the  longer 
one :  it  represents  it  only  in  its  identical  elements,  and  the  mis- 
taken belief  that  it  represents  it  also  in  others  can  only  result 
in  confusion  and  in  error.  A  line  can  conveniently  represent 
a  line  because  it  is  like  it  ;  it  cannot  represent  a  mathematical 
point  in  the  same  way,  because  the  two  do  not  thus  resemble  each 
other. 

A  careful  examination  of  our  knowledge  by  means  of  a  repre- 
sentative or  symbol,  in  the  many  instances  in  which  our  mental 
operations  do  not  lie  too  much  in  the  shade  to  permit  of  our 
scrutinizing  them  with  some  degree  of  clearness,  reveals  the  fact 


52  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

that  we  are  really  dealing,  either  with  aspects  of  things,  brought 
before  the  mind,  for  convenience,  not  singly,  but  combined  with 
elements  not  directly  concerned  in  our  reasonings ;  or  with  con- 
ventional signs  of  such  aspects  of  things,  such  as  the  figures  used 
in  arithmetic.  And  it  seems  reasonable  to  hold,  at  least  until 
good  reason  be  adduced  for  abandoning  the  assumption,  that  the 
same  explanation  may  be  given  of  those  instances  of  representative 
knowledge  which  do  not  easily  lend  themselves  to  analysis. 

Moreover,  when  one  has  firmly  grasped  the  significance  of  the 
symbol,  one  is  in  a  position  to  form  some  estimate  of  the  possible 
limits  of  symbolic  knowledge.  It  is  quite  possible  for  a  man  to 
mistake  the  arbitrary  signs  of  thoughts  for  thoughts,  and  to  sup- 
pose that,  when  he  has  made  an  intricate  combination  of  such 
signs,  he  is  necessarily  dealing  with  an  intricate  thought.  Yet  he 
may  be  doing  so  or  he  may  not  —  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind 
that  one  may  so  put  together  the  conventional  signs  of  thoughts 
that  the  combination  does  not  in  itself  represent  a  thought  of  any 
sort.  It  does  not  follow  that  such  a  combination  may  not  be  of 
service  for  certain  purposes,  that  it  may  not,  at  least,  be  a  useful 
record  of  a  series  of  operations  which  have  been  performed  or 
which  may  be  performed.  That  the  whole  group  of  signs,  taken 
as  a  group,  cannot  truly  symbolize  any  conceivable  experience, 
does  not  prove  that  the  combination  is  of  no  value,  and  may  not 
have  a  legitimate  place  in  a  science.  But  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  it  is  easy  to  mistake  the  significance  of  signs  when  they  are 
used  in  an  abstract  science.  That  this  is  a  constant  danger,  no 
one  knows  better  than  the  thoughtful  mathematician,  and  he  will 
be  the  first  to  admit  that  all  mathematicians  are  not  thoughtful. 

A  clear  comprehension  of  the  nature  of  symbolic  or  representa- 
tive knowledge  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  metaphysician. 
Those  who  are  inclined  to  hold  to  the  existence  of  an  external 
world  quite  different  from  the  world  of  our  experience  usually 
admit  that  we  can  never  know  these  external  things  directly,  but 
hold,  as  we  have  seen,  that  we  may  know  them  indirectly  through 
their  representative  images.  But  it  is  as  clear  as  day  that  we  can 
only  know  through  a  representative  those  things  which  this 
representative  can  truly  represent,  that  is  to  say,  those  things 
which  contain  identical  elements  with  it,  and  in  so  far  as  they 
contain  identical  elements  with  it.  A  representative  can  never 
stand  for  something  else  in  so  far  as  that  other  thing  differs  from  it. 


Hoio  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  53 

A  sound,  as  sound,  cannot  represent  a  color  as  color,  nor  can  it 
make  in  any  way  comprehensible  to  a  man  who  has  never  seen 
a  color,  what  the  nature  of  the  latter  may  be.  Thus  if  we  know 
immediately  only  elements  in  consciousness,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  we  should,  by  means  of  these,  represent  to  ourselves  elements 
of  a  different  kind  in  so  far  as  they  are  different.  The  necessary 
limitations  to  the  knowledge  of  the  prisoner  in  the  cell  described 
in  the  preceding  chapter  are  seen  to  be  not  unfairly  set  forth, 
when  one  reflects  upon  the  nature  of  representative  knowledge. 
The  metaphysician  must,  then,  cast  about  for  a  better  doctrine 
than  the  one  which  thus  misconceives  the  nature  of  symbolic 
knowledge. 

But  when  he  has  rejected  the  doctrine  just  criticised,  shall  the 
metaphysician  maintain  that  the  external  world  is  given  in  con- 
sciousness immediately?  At  the  beginning  of  the  present  chapter 
it  was  indicated  that  we  must  assume  it  to  be  given  in  conscious- 
ness in  some  sense  of  those  words.  It  is  palpably  absurd  to 
maintain  that  the  external  world  is  intuitively  present  to  any 
human  consciousness  in  the  immensity  and  overpowering  wealth 
of  detail  that  we  seem  justified  in  attributing  to  the  external 
world.  How,  then,  shall  we  conceive  it  to  be  given  in  con- 
sciousness? The  problem  does  not  seem  incapable  of  a  reason- 
able solution  when  one  has  come  to  a  clear  comprehension  of  the 
nature  of  symbolic  knowledge,  as  I  shall  try  to  make  plain  in  the 
appropriate  place ;  but  it  appears  to  be  a  hopeless  problem  to  one 
who  has  not  grasped  this  distinction.  This  last  truth  emerges 
with  great  distinctness  when  we  examine  the  perplexities  and 
inconsistencies  into  which  men  have  fallen  when  they  have 
endeavored  to  give  an  accurate  account  of  the  nature  of  space 
and  time. 

I  feel  that  it  would  hardly  be  fair  to  set  forth,  as  I  have  done 
in  this  chapter,  the  method  of  arriving,  by  deductive  reasonings, 
at  an  analytic  knowledge  of  the  elements  in  consciousness,  with- 
out at  the  same  time  indicating  some  of  the  rather  startling  conse- 
quences to  which  it  appears  to  lead  one  when  applied  with  logical 
consistency  and  thoroughness.  Few  would  shrink  from  the  con- 
clusion suggested  by  an  examination  of  Hume's  illustration  of  the 
globes  and  the  cube  of  marble,  the  conclusion,  namely,  that  we  do 
really  distinguish  between  form  and  color,  and  in  some  way  grasp 
each  element  separately.  It  is  generally  recognized  that  a  percept 


54  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

is  a  complex  mental  experience,  and  an  attempt  is  made  in  modern 
handbooks  of  psychology  to  enumerate  in  detail  its  elements.  But 
there  are  cases  in  which  what  appears  to  be  the  most  reasonable 
conclusion,  from  a  theoretical  point  of  view  at  least,  is  of  such  a 
nature  that  even  a  trained  psychologist  may  hesitate  to  give  his 
assent  to  it. 

Such  an  instance  is  the  following :  in  studying  sensations  the 
psychologist  distinguishes  in  them  certain  aspects,  such  as  their 
duration,  extensity,  intensity,  and  quality.  Let  us  consider  only 
two  of  these,  and  let  us  suppose  a  man  to  be  conscious  at  a  given 
moment  of  two  apparently  unextended  points  of  color,  the  one 
red  and  the  other  blue.  These  the  psychologist  will  recognize  as 
differing  in  quality,  since  the  colors  are  not  identical ;  but  he  may 
maintain  that  the  intensity  of  the  two  color-sensations  is  the  same. 
In  other  words,  he  recognizes  the  two  sensations  to  be  in  the  one 
respect  identical,  and  in  the  other  different,  just  as  in  Hume's 
illustration  two  globes  were  found  to  agree  in  form  and  not  in 
color. 

But  if  it  is  reasonable  to  infer,  from  the  fact  that  the  one  globe 
is  perceived  to  resemble  the  other  in  one  element  and  to  be  dis- 
similar from  it  in  another  —  if  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  from 
this  that  each  of  these  experiences  is  complex,  and  that  this  com- 
plex is  analyzed  in  the  act  of  comparison,  why  is  it  not  reasonable 
to  carry  over  the  same  reasoning  to  the  two  experiences  of  color 
which  we  are  discussing  ?  If  two  color-sensations  really  have  the 
same  intensity  while  they  have  not  the  same  quality,  it  surely 
follows  that  intensity  and  quality  are  not  identical,  but  are  distinct 
elements,  recognized  as  distinct,  at  least  implicitly,  by  every  one 
who  distinguishes  them  from  each  other.  Each  of  the  sensations 
is,  then,  a  complex  thing,  and  not  simple,  and  the  successive  acts 
of  attention  which  mark  at  one  time  its  intensity  and  at  another 
its  quality,  are  singling  out  its  elements  just  as  attention  always 
singles  out  certain  things  in  consciousness  from  certain  others,  and 
gives  them  a  relatively  greater  prominence.  But  if  such  sensa- 
tions are  really  complex  and  may  be  thus  separated  in  thought 
into  their  elements,  is  it  not,  at  least  theoretically,  possible  that 
the  one  element  might  disappear  from  consciousness  altogether, 
and  the  other  remain  undisturbed  ?  In  other  words,  can  we  not 
conceive  a  state  of  consciousness  which  would  be  a  consciousness 
of  intensity  alone,  divorced  from  quality,  or  of  quality  divorced 


How  Things  are  Given  in  Consciousness  55 

from  intensity?  It  seems  rather  appalling  to  contemplate  the 
possibility  of  a  consciousness  of  color  which  has  no  intensity  at 
all,  or  of  a  consciousness  of  intensity  without  anything  to  be 
intense,  but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  we  can  legitimately 
arrive  at  any  other  conclusion. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  we  cannot  imagine  a  color  of  no 
intensity  at  all,  and  hence  the  problem  may  be  dismissed.  Of 
course  we  cannot  imagine  it  as  we  imagine  colored  surfaces  with 
all  the  characteristics  which  usually  mark  them.  But  then  we 
are  also  unable,  when  we  look  at  a  globe  of  marble,  to  separate 
the  color-sensations  pure  and  simple  from  all  the  other  elements 
which  a  past  experience  of  things  has  furnished  us,  and  hold  them 
up  before  the  mind's  eye  by  themselves.  This  does  not  prevent 
us  from  distinguishing  between  them  and  the  rest  of  the  elements 
constituting  our  percept,  and  even  believing  that  in  certain  con- 
sciousnesses —  those  of  infants  at  the  outset  of  their  mental  life  — 
they  may  present  themselves  in  a  more  independent  way. 

The  question  is,  to  be  sure,  one  of  theoretical  rather  than 
of  practical  interest,  but  it  is  worth  while  to  discuss  it,  if  only 
because  it  brings  into  relief  the  general  method  of  attaining  an 
analytic  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  consciousness,  and  empha- 
sizes some  of  the  difficulties  connected  with  it.  That  there  are 
such  difficulties  should  be  frankly  admitted,  and  it  should  as 
frankly  be  admitted  that  we  are  at  present  far  from  having  as 
complete  a  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  consciousness  as  it  is 
desirable  that  we  should  attain.  Were  it  easy  to  attain  to  such 
a  knowledge,  many  disputes  which  have  been  carried  on  with 
energy  through  whole  centuries,  and  which  we  have  inherited  from 
our  predecessors,  would  have  died  away  in  a  remote  past.  They 
still  live  because  they  have  a  reason  for  living.  Our  most  dan- 
gerous error  lies  in  supposing  it  to  be  easy  to  describe  our  own 
experience,  in  assuming  that  the  panorama  of  our  mental  life 
unrolls  itself  before  the  introspective  eye  in  a  clear  light,  and  that 
the  objects  which  it  pictures  stand  out  in  unmistakable  detail. 
It  is  too  often  forgotten  that  it  is  one  thing  to  have  an  experience, 
and  quite  another  to  reflect  upon  it.  And  until  one  has  reflected 
upon  one's  experiences  with  some  degree  of  success,  one  can  only 
in  a  restricted  sense  of  the  word  be  said  to  have  "had  "  them. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  ELEMENTS  IN  CONSCIOUSNESS 

THE  attempt  to  obtain  a  general  view  of  the  contents  of  con- 
sciousness at  first  results  in  a  bewildering  sense  of  the  variety  and 
complexity  of  the  material  which  presents  itself  for  examination. 
But  attention  soon  reveals  that  there  are  certain  broad  distinctions 
which  one  may  make,  and  which  have  been  recognized  more  or 
less  clearly  for  a  long  time  past. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  distinction  between  what  is  given 
in  the  sense  and  what  is  reproduced  in  memory  or  imagination  — 
a  distinction  marked  by  Hume  by  the  use  of  the  terms  "  impres- 
sions "  and  "ideas." 

In  a  given  instance  it  may  not  be  easy  to  decide  offhand 
whether  a  certain  experience  is  to  be  relegated  to  the  one  class 
or  to  the  other;  but  in  general  the  distinction  is  a  sufficiently 
apparent  one,  and  is  recognized  by  the  plain  man  and  the  scholar 
alike.  Sense-experiences,  or  at  least  such  of  them  as  usually 
occupy  the  attention  and  stand  out  in  our  minds  as  representa- 
tives of  their  class,  possess  a  vividness  denied  in  most  cases  to 
"ideas."  I  cannot  confuse  the  vivid  experience  of  the  pen  which 
I  see  on  the  table  before  me  with  the  shadowy  and  unsubstantial 
image  of  the  pencil  which  I  imagine  to  be  lying  beside  it.  The 
contrast  is  here  very  great,  and  it  needs  no  system  of  tests  to  con- 
vince me  that  the  two  objects  fall  under  different  categories.  It 
is  true  that  sense-experiences  do  not  always  distinguish  themselves 
so  clearly  from  the  images  present  in  the  imagination.  These 
images  may  become  very  vivid  and  insistent,  and  sensations  may 
be  extremely  vague  and  obscure.  A  series  of  experiments  may 
be  needed  before  it  is  possible  to  decide  that  a  certain  experi- 
ence, which  is  not  recognizable  at  first  glance  as  belonging  to  the 
one  class  or  to  the  other,  at  least  behaves  in  such  a  way,  stands  in 
such  a  connection  with  other  experiences,  that  its  proper  place 
may  be  assigned  to  it  with  confidence.  If  we  are  wise,  we  will 

56 


The  Elements  in  Consciousness  57 

not  assume  that  the  sheeted  ghost  which  presents  itself  to  our 
startled  eyes  when  we  awake  from  slumber  on  the  stroke  of 
twelve,  is  a  real  phantom,  a  creature  of  the  sense,  merely  because 
it  is  vividly  perceived.  We  will  ask  it  to  present  its  credentials, 
prove  its  claim  to  respectability  of  character,  and,  in  short,  to  con- 
duct itself  as  a  real  ghost,  claiming  a  right  to  be  admitted  into  the 
circle  of  real  things,  should  conduct  itself.  If  it  fails  to  establish 
its  claim,  we  will  harden  our  hearts  to  its  unsubstantial  sighs,  and 
banish  it  to  the  limbo  of  the  things  that  are  not  what  they  seem. 

Fortunately,  it  is  not  always  necessary  to  employ  such  indirect 
methods  in  distinguishing  between  sense-experiences  and  "  ideas." 
In  most  instances  the  two  classes  fall  apart  of  themselves.  Were 
any  man  capable  of  confusing  them  at  all  times,  his  progress  in  a 
crowded  street  would  be  an  eccentric  one.  We  may  assume  that 
they  may  be  distinguished  directly  by  most  men  with  sufficient 
accuracy  for  the  purposes  of  common  life,  although  we  must  admit 
the  possibility  of  error  in  individual  cases,  and  must  make  a  final 
appeal,  when  any  dispute  arises,  to  the  methods  of  investigation 
described  by  the  logician.  The  attribute  of  possessing  a  greater 
vividness  is  sufficient  to  mark  out  roughly  the  one  class  of  expe- 
riences from  the  other.  If  there  is  any  other  difference  in  the 
experiences  themselves,  we  must  turn  for  information  regarding 
it  to  the  psychologist. 

Thus  we  find  the  phenomena  of  our  mental  life  divided  into 
two  broad  classes.  It  is  generally  admitted  that  one  of  these 
must  be  regarded  as,  in  a  sense,  copied  from  the  other.  It  is  self- 
evident  that  the  images  in  the  memory  cannot  be  original  crea- 
tions, but  can  come  into  being  only  when  there  have  been  certain 
experiences  in  the  sense ;  and  it  has  often  been  pointed  out  that 
there  is  no  flight  of  the  imagination  which  can  carry  it  out  of  the 
region  of  the  elements  derived  in  the  first  instance  from  the  senses.  ( 
We  may  combine  these  elements  in  many  ways,  and  we  may  build 
up  complexes  which,  as  complexes,  are  new ;  but  further  than  this 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  go.  No  man  who  has  never  seen  a  color 
can  imagine  one,  nor  can  he  truly  represent  to  himself  any  expe- 
rience into  which  the  element  of  color  enters.  These  truths  are 
commonplaces  of  psychology,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon 
them  at  length. 

There  is  another  broad  distinction  between  elements  in  con- 
sciousness, upon  which  much  emphasis  has  been  laid  for  a  few 


58  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

generations  past.  This  is  the  distinction  between  form  and  matter, 
between  the  arrangement  of  certain  elements  in  consciousness  and 
those  elements  themselves. 

It  is  manifestly  not  a  complete  description  of  our  experience 
to  say  that  we  find  in  it  such  and  such  sensations  of  sound,  color, 
touch,  pain,  etc.,  and  such  and  such  reproductions  of  these  in 
memory  and  imagination.  These  sensations  and  "ideas"  are 
arranged  in  divers  ways,  and  stand  in  manifold  relations  to  each 
other.  These  relations  exist  as  truly  as  do  the  things  which 
stand  in  relation,  and  we  constantly  recognize  them  in  our  rea- 
sonings in  much  the  same  way. 

For  example,  when  we  look  at  three  blue  spots  so  arranged 
that  lines  joining  them  with  each  other  would  form  an  equilateral 
triangle,  and  then  look  at  three  red  spots  similarly  arranged,  we 
recognize  a  sameness  and  a  difference,  just  as  we  do  when  we 
compare  a  globe  of  white  marble  with  a  globe  of  black.  We  see 
that  there  is  identity  in  the  formal  element  in  our  experience  and 
diversity  in  the  material.  And  when  we  compare  three  blue 
spots  arranged  as  above  mentioned  with  three  similar  blue  spots 
arranged  in  a  row,  we  find  the  material  element  to  be  identical, 
and  the  formal  to  be  diverse.  In  such  a  case  there  is  no  difficulty 
in  distinguishing  between  the  two  elements,  and  in  picking  out 
the  one  from  the  other.  We  are  evidently  dealing  with  a  com- 
plex and  are  analyzing  it  into  its  constituents,  and  the  difficulty 
of  holding  relations  separately  before  the  attention,  and  obtaining 
a  clear  view  of  them,  appears  to  be  only  an  instance  of  the  dif- 
ficulty which  always  confronts  us  when  we  attempt  to  grasp,  in  an 
analytic  way,  elements  of  the  complexes  which  constitute  our 
experience. 

The  material  elements  in  consciousness  may  either  be  present 
simultaneously,  or  they  may  be  successive.  In  this  distinction  we 
have  the  two  most  general  classes  into  which  the  ways  of  arrang- 
ing them  may  be  divided.  The  former  class  it  is  convenient  to 
subdivide  further,  for  not  all  those  material  elements  which 
appear  in  consciousness  simultaneously  stand  to  each  other  in 
what  we  call  spacial  relations.  These  latter  form  a  special  class, 
a  form  of  coexistence  of  such  importance  that  it  is  sometimes  over- 
looked that  there  are  coexistences  of  a  different  kind.  Relations 
of  succession  are  those  classed  together  as  temporal. 

It  is   important  to  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  these  ways   of 


The  Elements  in  Consciousness  59 

arranging  material  elements  are  actually  found  in  our  experience. 
It  does  not  appear  possible  to  reduce  them  to  anything  simpler,  or 
to  identify  them  with  one  another.  Philosophers  and  psychologists 
have  sometimes  maintained  that  spacial  relations  are  not  actually 
given  in  consciousness,  but  are  merely  represented  by  non-spacial 
experiences,  which  in  some  way  stand  for  really  extended  things 
without;  and  they  have  similarly  maintained  that  we  have  no 
immediate  consciousness  of  succession,  on  the  ground  that  we  can 
exist  only  in  successive  instants,  that  all  that  is  in  consciousness 
at  any  one  instant  must  be  simultaneous,  and  that  any  past  in- 
stant, since  it  has  vanished  away  and  given  place  to  its  successor, 
can  only  be  represented  in  the  actual  present  by  some  proxy,  in 
itself  not  a  past  experience,  but  capable  in  some  inexplicable  way 
of  standing  for  one.  Thus  the  images  in  the  memory  are,  it  is 
claimed,  present  experiences,  but  are  recognized  as  symbolic  of  the 
past. 

It  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  such  doctrines  to  recall  to  mind  the 
nature  of  symbolic  or  representative  knowledge  in  general.  We 
have  seen  that  things  can  represent  each  other  only  in  so  far  as 
they  have  identical  elements.  If  this  be  so,  how  is  it  possible  for 
a  consciousness,  which  contains  no  spacial  arrangement  of  elements, 
to  represent  in  any  manner  objects  extended  in  space  —  to  obtain 
the  faintest  inkling  of  what  is  meant  by  spacial  extension  ?  It 
contains  nothing  which  can  stand  for  such ;  coexistent  elements 
not  spacially  arranged  cannot  serve  its  purpose,  for  the  one  thing 
it  is  desired  to  represent  is  not  present  in  them  in  any  form  what- 
ever. A  small  space  may  represent  a  large  one,  in  so  far  as  both 
are  space ;  but  the  man  who  seriously  holds  that  nothing  in  con- 
sciousness is  truly  extended,  that  none  of  its  elements  stand  in 
spacial  relations,  must  either  deny  to  us  all  knowledge  of  space 
whatever,  or  virtually  maintain  that  sound  as  sound  may  represent 
color  as  color,  or  that  taste  as  taste  may  represent  straightness  or 
triangularity  as  such.  It  is  the  old  difficulty,  the  attempt  to  make 
something  out  of  nothing ;  and  it  is  only  the  obscurity  in  which  the 
action  takes  place  that  prevents  the  whole  procedure  from  receiv- 
ing instant  condemnation. 

So  it  is  also  in  the  case  of  time.  If  we  have  no  immediate  con- 
sciousness of  succession,  if  our  memory-images  do  not  themselves 
belong  to  the  past,  even  a  very  slightly  remote  past,  but  are  present 
elements  which  merely  represent  the  past,  where  do  we  get  that 


60  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

idea  of  succession  which  we  read  into  them,  thus  making  them,  not 
present  images,  but  something  more?  In  such  a  case,  this  some- 
thing more  must  be  a  mere  negation  ;  there  can  be  no  positive  con- 
tent to  read  into  our  symbol,  for  none  such  is  furnished  by  our 
experience. 

Doubtless  the  reader  will  here  start  at  the  paradox  to  which  our 
reasonings  seem  to  point,  namely,  to  the  doctrine  that  the  past  is 
not  really  past  and  vanished,  but  remains  in  some  sense  present 
in  the  present  moment.  This  paradox  is  many  centuries  old,  and 
many  have  wagged  their  heads  against  it.  I  shall  be  compelled  to 
enter  into  the  question  at  length  in  a  later  chapter,  and  shall  try  to 
show  that  the  difficulty  is  not  an  insurmountable  one.1  But,  for 
the  present,  it  is  enough  to  insist  that  a  symbol  deprived  of  its 
meaning  is  no  true  symbol,  and  that  .if  we  have  no  immediate  knowl- 
edge of  the  lapse  of  time,  we  shall  never  gain  a  mediate  knowledge 
of  such  by  fitting  together  elements  in  which  no  element  of  succes- 
sion is  contained.  To  declare  the  representation  of  the  past  by 
present  images  in  the  memory  to  be  something  ultimate  and  in- 
explicable, which  one  must  simply  accept,  is  not  merely  a  refusal 
to  seek  further  for  the  explanation  of  an  accepted  fact  ;  it  is  to 
furnish  a  false  explanation ;  it  is  to  demand  of  a  representative 
what  it  is  clear  that  no  representative  is  able  to  perform. 

When  one  has  distinguished  between  the  formal  and  the  mate- 
rial elements  in  consciousness,  it  is  important  to  remember  that 
they  are  both  elements  in  consciousness  and  should  be  treated  in 
our  reasonings  in  much  the  same  way.  Sometimes  this  caution  is 
not  heeded,  and  we  not  infrequently  find  the  element  of  form 
handled  in  what  can  only  be  called  a  fantastic  and  irresponsible 
manner.  It  seems  to  be  assumed  that  it  is  freed  from  the  limita- 
tions which  attach  to  the  material  element  and  make  its  manner  of 
existence  comprehensible.  For  treating  it  in  this  way  there  is  no 
good  warrant,  and  doing  so  only  introduces  needless  confusion  into 
our  thought. 

An  illustration  will  serve  to  make  this  clear.  It  was  pointed 
out  a  little  above,  that,  in  comparing  three  blue  spots  so  arranged 
that  the  lines  joining  them  would  make  an  equilateral  triangle, 
with  three  red  spots  similarly  arranged,  we  recognize  a  sameness 
and  a  difference,  an  identity  in  the  formal  element  and  a  diversity 
in  the  material ;  while  in  comparing  the  former  with  three  blue 

1  Chapter  XIII. 


The  Elements  in  Consciousness  61 

spots  arranged  in  a  row,  we  recognize  an  identity  in  the  material 
element  and  a  diversity  in  the  formal.  But  it  should  be  remarked 
that  the  words  "  sameness  "  and  "  identity,"  as  here  used,  cannot 
be  taken  as  indicating  identity  in  the  strictest  sense. 

Three  spots  of  blue  color  in  the  one  place  are  not  strictly 
identical  with  three  spots  of  blue  color  in  another  place  ;  they  are 
merely  like  them.  Even  if  they  are  so  much  like  them  that  there 
is  no  possible  way  of  distinguishing  the  two  groups  of  spots  from 
each  other  except  by  noticing  that  they  are  in  different  places, 
there  still  remains  at  least  this  difference.  The  one  thing,  no 
matter  what  the  nature  of  that  thing  may  be,  cannot  at  once  exist 
in  two  different  places.  Nor  can  the  one  thing,  strictly  speaking, 
exist  in  two  different  times.  We  may,  of  course,  apply  the  term 
"  one  thing  "  to  a  complex  whose  elements  are  in  part  successive, 
and  we  constantly  do  thus  use  it.  But  the  sameness  of  such  a 
thing  is  manifestly  a  very  different  one  from  that  strict  identity 
which  excludes  all  diversity  whatever,  whether  of  time,  place,  or 
quality.  In  common  speech  we  do  not  determine  our  thought 
with  great  accuracy,  and  we  frequently  speak  of  a  color  perceived 
in  one  place  or  at  one  time  as  identical  with  one  perceived  in  an- 
other place  or  at  another  time,  not  stopping  to  think  whether  we 
are  indicating  a  complete  or  a  merely  partial  identity.  But  a  little 
reflection  shows  us  that  we  must  have  reference  to  the  latter,  and 
not  the  former.  It  is  no  more  possible  for  two  spots  of  color  to  be 
one,  or  the  color  of  two  distinct  spots  to  be  one  (how  hard  it  is  to 
be  clear  when  language  is  adapted  to  indefinite  modes  of  thought !  )> 
than  it  is  for  two  cows  or  two  horses  to  be  one.  In  the  latter  case 
we  are  dealing  with  complex  experiences,  and  in  the  former  with 
elements  of  such,  but  temporal  and  spacial  distinctions,  which 
mark  the  difference,  remain  just  the  same.  It  is  impossible  that  a 
thing  should  in  any  way  be  distinguished  from  itself,  but  it  can  be 
distinguished  from  other  things.  Where  any  diversity  whatever 
can  be  remarked,  we  are  not  dealing  with  the  one  thing  alone. 

It  is  difficult  for  some  minds  to  see  that,  in  making  such  state- 
ments, we  are  justified  in  taking  the  word  "thing"  in  the  broadest 
possible  sense,  in  asserting  that  to  be  true  of  single  qualities  of 
things  which  is  generally  admitted  to  be  true  of  things  as  com- 
monly understood.  The  reason  for  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  do 
not  usually  find  it  necessary  to  distinguish  between  two  occurrences 
of  the  same  quality  and  mark  that  distinction  by  words.  When 


62  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

one  asserts  that  the  color  of  one  spot  is  identical  with  that  of 
another,  and  maintains  that  it  is  strictly  identical  on  the  ground 
that  qualities  are  not  to  be  subjected  to  the  local  and  temporal 
distinctions  which  mark  individual  things,  he  is  simply  fixing  his 
attention  upon  color  in  the  abstract,  and  failing  to  notice  that  color 
is  not  precisely  the  same  as  this  or  that  occurrence  of  color,  for 
the  latter  is  a  more  complex  experience  —  it  is  color  with  a  differ- 
ence. He  is  recognizing  the  universal,  but  failing  to  distinguish 
it  from  the  individuals  "  in  "  which  it  appears.  It  is  manifestly 
an  error  to  confound  one  individual  with  another,  simply  on  the 
ground  that  they  contain  a  common  element,  whether  those  indi- 
viduals be  relatively  complex  experiences  or  relatively  simple  ones. 
"  Color  here  "  and  "  color  there  "  are  not  one  and  the  same  experi- 
ence, and  must  not  be  confused. 

But  even  those  who  can  see  quite  clearly  that  this  is  so,  are 
not  always  capable  of  seeing  that  the  same  distinctions  must  be 
firmly  held  to  in  dealing  with  the  formal  element  in  consciousness. 
If  I  can  recognize,  in  comparing  two  experiences,  that  they  are 
identical  in  the  material  element  and  diverse  in  the  formal,  or 
diverse  in  the  material  and  identical  in  the  formal,  I  am  manifestly 
capable  of  singling  out  the  latter  element  from  the  former  and 
talking  about  it.  It  is,  of  course,  important  that  I  should  not  talk 
about  it  incoherently,  or  deal  with  it  in  an  arbitrary  way.  If  I 
fail  to  recognize  that  the  relations  between  these  three  spots  of 
color  are  not  strictly  identical  with  the  similar  relations  between 
three  other  spots,  but  are  merely  resembling,  if  I  insist  that  the 
relations  are  truly  identical,  though  the  material  elements  are  not, 
I  show  gratuitous  and  unjust  discrimination,  and  I  throw  into  hope- 
less confusion  my  ideas  regarding  the  formal  element  in  conscious- 
ness and  its  manner  of  existence. 

When  I  look  at  the  three  spots  before  my  eyes  I  am  conscious 
of  both  the  elements  we  have  been  discussing,  the  sensations  of 
color  and  their  arrangement.  If  these  three  spots  are  these  three 
spots  and  no  others,  surely  the  relations  between  them  are  these 
particular  relations  and  no  others.  I  do  not  distinguish  the  spots 
merely  from  other  spots  which  differ  from  them  in  color,  but  also 
from  those  which  resemble  them  in  color  but  either  existed  at  a 
different  time  or  now  exist  in  a  different  place.  There  is  surely  as 
good  reason  to  distinguish  these  particular  relations,  existing  at 
this  time  and  place,  not  only  from  all  relations  of  a  different  sort, 


The  Elements  in  Consciousness  63 

but  also  from  those  like  them  which  may  have  formerly  existed  or 
now  exist  elsewhere.  It  is  not  necessary  for  the  purposes  of  com- 
mon life  to  mark  such  distinctions,  and  it  is  possible  to  explain 
psychologically  the  error  of  the  man  who  fails  to  recognize  them. 
But  it  is  not  easy  to  bring  him  to  a  sense  of  his  error.  One  cannot 
show  him  that  his  reasons  for  making  of  a  relation  a  monster  capa- 
ble of  existing  in  several  places  at  the  same  time  are  insufficient. 
He  has  no  reasons  for  taking  such  a  position.  He  simply  takes  it. 
Possibly  it  might  have  some  effect  upon  his  mind  to  show  him  that 
all  sorts  of  different  objects  may  be  identified  with  each  other  by 
just  the  same  mode  of  procedure,  by  fixing  attention  upon  the  ele- 
ments of  identity  which  they  present,  and  overlooking  all  differ- 
ences, including  such  as  are  spacial  and  temporal ;  by  taking  leave, 
in  other  words,  of  real  things,  having  their  definite  place  in  the 
world-system,  and  taking  refuge  in  abstractions.  Of  course,  the 
man  who  does  this  has  no  right  to  place  his  abstractions  in 
the  real  world.  That  world  contains  no  "place"  in  general;  it 
contains  only  definite  places  that  must  be  occupied  by  individual 
things  which  are  not  abstractions. 

Thus,  whether  we  are  dealing  with  the  material  element  in 
consciousness  or  with  the  formal,  we  must  reason  coherently  and 
remain  intelligible.  A  relation  is  not  possessed  of  miraculous 
powers  any  more  than  a  color  or  a  sound.  Relations  which  exist 
at  different  times  or  in  different  places  are  thus  distinguished  as 
different,  however  closely  they  may  resemble  each  other.  In  short, 
the  difference  which  we  recognize  between  the  elements  of  form 
and  matter  does  not  justify  us  in  treating  them  in  our  reasonings 
in  a  different  way.  It  may  seem  to  the  reader  a  gratuitous  cruelty 
to  inflict  upon  him  so  lengthy  a  discussion  of  what  appears  a 
simple  and  evident  matter,  but  there  has  been  so  much  mysti- 
fication connected  with  the  formal  element  in  consciousness  that 
one  cannot  be  too  explicit. 

But  if  it  is  possible  to  fall  into  the  error  of  treating  the  formal 
elements  in  consciousness  as  so  different  from  the  material  that 
the  manner  of  their  existence  becomes  unintelligible,  it  is  also 
possible  to  fall  into  the  contrary  error  of  confounding  the  two 
classes  of  elements  with  each  other,  and  failing  to  recognize  any 
ultimate  difference  between  them. 

One  may  argue  that  when  we  look  at  two  patches  of  color,  and 
distinguish  the  spacial  relation  in  which  they  stand  to  each  other 


64  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

from  the  colors  themselves,  we  are  not  really  separating,  in  thought, 
form  from  matter,  for  each  patch  is  necessarily  extended  in  space, 
and  is  itself  a  complex  composed  of  both  elements,  the  various 
parts  of  the  patch  standing  in  spacial  relations  to  each  other.  If, 
it  may  be  said,  instead  of  considering  the  two  patches,  we  take  any 
two  parts  of  the  one  patch,  we  will  find  again  that  the  material 
element,  which  we  are  trying  to  single  out,  is  not  a  purely 
material  element,  but  contains  also  an  element  of  form ;  and  since 
any  patch  of  color  whatever  is  infinitely  divisible,  it  is  hopeless  to 
attempt,  by  repeating  the  operation,  to  arrive  at  an  element  which 
is  material  and  nothing  more ;  we  shall  always  find  color  and  form 
combined,  never  one  alone.  From  this  it  may  be  concluded  that 
we  have  not  really  to  do  with  two  elements,  for  the  material  ele- 
ment we  may  recognize,  at  any  stage  of  our  progress,  as  consti- 
tuted, or  made  what  it  z's,  by  the  formal  element. 

In  this  bit  of  reasoning  it  is  very  easy  to  find  flaws.  I  shall 
say  nothing  here  of  the  assumption  that  every  patch  of  color  is 
infinitely  divisible,  for  that  can  best  be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter 
on  the  nature  of  space ;  but  even  assuming  for  the  present  that  no 
objection  can  be  made  to  this  assumption,  the  argument  may  be 
seen  to  be  an  extremely  loose  one.  In  the  first  place,  it  admits 
that  we  distinguish  between  the  two  patches  of  color  and  the 
spacial  relation  between  them.  It  is  fair  to  ask  whether  this  rela- 
tion is  confounded  with  either  of  the  patches  or  with  both  of  them, 
or  is  supposed  to  contain  any  material  element?  The  relation  is 
not  a  color,  and  is  not  supposed  to  be  such  by  any  one.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  discovered  that  each  of  the  patches  of  color  is 
itself  a  complex,  and  consists  of  material  elements  which  stand 
in  relations  to  each  other.  Here  again  there  is  no  confusion 
between  the  elements  in  relation  and  the  relations  themselves. 
No  one  thinks  of  the  halves  of  a  patch  of  color,  whether  that  patch 
be  large  or  small,  as  identical  with  the  relation  between  those 
halves,  or  even  as  like  it.  So  it  is  at  each  stage  of  our  progress  ; 
the  things  perceived  are  distinguished  from  the  relations  in  which 
they  stand,  and  they  are  always  recognized  as  different  fYom  them. 
The  fact  that  the  things  perceived  are  not  simple  elements,  but 
complexes,  lias  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  possibility  of 
their  being  recognized  as  standing  in  certain  relations  to  each 
other,  and  as  being  themselves  distinct  from  those  relations.  By 
hypothesis,  a  further  progress  simply  repeats  the  former  experi- 


The  Elements  in  Consciousness  65 

ences ;  we  must  always  be  conscious  of  two  elements,  a  formal  and 
a  material ;  we  cannot  arrive,  by  any  possibility,  at  what  is  simple 
and  ultimate,  but  must  ever  deal  with  complexes.  And  from  this 
there  is  sometimes  drawn  the  surprising  conclusion  that  we  do  not 
really  have  to  do  with  two  elements.  By  what  art  this  conclusion 
may  be  abstracted  from  such  premises  it  is  impossible  to  conceive. 
Perhaps  the  difficulty  arises  partly  from  the  use  of  such  ambiguous 
forms  of  expression  as  that  qualities  are  "  constituted  by "  rela 
tions,1  If  we  take  this  as  meaning  "made  up  of,"  we  certainly 
have  no  warrant  in  any  of  the  above-described  experiences  for 
assuming  that  a  patch  of  color  is  constituted  by  relations.  If  we 
take  it  as  meaning  "  partly  made  up  of,"  we  have  no  warrant 
for  declaring  that  the  distinction  between  relations  and  material 
elements  is  not  an  ultimate  one,  for  our  patch  of  color  may  also 
be  constituted  by  elements  of  a  different  sort. 

Another  form  of  the  argument  to  prove  that  the  distinction 
between  the  formal  and  the  material  elements  in  experience  is  not 
an  ultimate  one  is  the  following :  It  is  maintained  that  every 
attempt  to  bring  before  the  attention  pure  and  simple,  a  mere 
material  element,  reveals  that  what  we  actually  succeed  in  attend- 
ing to  contains  or  implies  other  elements,  formal  elements,  as  well. 
For  instance,  we  are  conscious  of  the  color  red.  But  reflection 
shows  us,  not  merely  that  we  think  of  the  color  red  as  somehow 
spread  out,  definitely  or  indefinitely,  in  space  ;  but  also  that  the 
mere  consciousness  that  this  is  red  implies  a  discrimination  between 
this  and  other  colors ;  implies,  that  is,  a  consciousness  of  relations, 
a  classification  and  separation  of  different  elements.  What  the 
consciousness  of  red  alone  would  be,  we  cannot,  it  is  claimed, 
possibly  conceive. 

It  is  clear  this  reasoning,  too,  arises  out  of  a  confusion.  It  may 
perfectly  well  be  admitted  that  we  are  not  normally  conscious  of 
single  sensations  all  by  themselves,  and  that  our  total  conscious- 
ness at  any  time  is  something  highly  complex.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  is  possible  by  an  act  of  attention  to  single  out  and  in  a 
certain  sense  cause  to  stand  forth  individually,  for  a  passing 
moment,  elements  of  consciousness  which  form  a  very  small  part  of 
that  total  of  which  they  form  a  part.  We  cannot  banish  all  the 
rest  of  consciousness  into  nothingness,  and  we  cannot  hold  such 
elements  clearly  and  permanently  in  the  foreground  of  our  thought. 
1  T.  H.  Green,  "  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,"  §  20. 


66  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

But  we  can  distinguish  between  these  elements  and  others  ;  we 
can  retain  them  in  the  attention  while  those  with  which  they  are 
associated  vary,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  formation  of  concepts  or 
general  notions  ;  and  we  can  indicate  to  others  by  the  use  of  lan- 
guage that  it  is  these  particular  elements  that  we  are  interested 
in  for  the  time  being  and  not  others.  The  denial  of  such  a  power 
makes  the  procedure  of  thought  in  analyzing  and  comparing  com- 
plex experiences  wholly  incomprehensible. 

But  if  this  be  admitted,  it  must  also  be  admitted  that  we  can 
distinguish  between  the  color  red  and  any  relations  in  which  it 
may  stand  to  other  things  in  our  consciousness,  as  well  as  between 
the  color  itself  and  any  other  material  elements  with  which  it 
may  be  combined.  To  think  of  the  color  red  and  abstract  from 
other  elements  given  with  it,  it  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  reduce 
our  consciousness  to  a  something  whose  sole  content  is  an  ex- 
perience of  red  color.  And  yet,  by  thus  abstracting  from  other 
elements  we  may  represent  to  ourselves,  with  a  greater  or  less 
approach  to  accuracy,  what  would  be  the  experience  of  a  con- 
sciousness thus  limited  in  content.  We  do  not  make  our  whole 
consciousness  representative  of  the  content  of  such  a  conscious- 
ness ;  we  search  among  its  elements  and  try  to  single  out  from  all 
others  only  that  which  will  truly  represent  such  a  content.  It  may 
be  difficult  in  any  given  case  to  perform  this  task  with  accuracy ; 
it  may  be  hard  to  strip  away  all  that  ought  to  be  stripped  away; 
but  there  is  no  theoretical  impossibility  of  performing  such  an 
operation.  We  do  something  of  the  kind  every  time  that  we  think 
of  this  person  or  of  that  as  thinking  of  this  or  that.  We  never 
suppose  that  our  whole  experience  is  representative  of  such  a  per- 
son's thought ;  we  merely  single  out  from  it  so  much  as  we  think 
may  be  truly  representative,  and,  for  the  time  being,  we  abstract 
from  the  rest. 

There  is,  hence,  no  theoretical  difficulty  in  distinguishing  be- 
tween the  material  and  the  formal  elements  in  our  experience ;  in 
"  thinking  of "  a  pure  sensation  which  does  not  stand  in  relation 
to  other  things.  Of  course  we  cannot  hold  such  an  element  of 
our  experience  before  the  attention  in  the  same  vivid  way  in  which 
we  can  represent  to  ourselves  more  complex  experience,  trees, 
houses,  animals.  But  there  is  much  that  cannot  thus  be  held 
before  the  attention,  which  we  must  still  recognize  as  "  thought 
of,"  and  our  thought  of  such  things  may  be,  and  indeed  is,  such  an 


The  Elements  in  Consciousness  67 

essential  constituent  of  our  mental  life,  that  it  could  not  go  on 
without  it. 

The  question  may  very  justly  be  raised  whether,  when  we 
attempt  to  analyze  into  their  constituents  the  complexes  given 
in  our  experience,  we  may  conceivably  hope  to  arrive  by  this 
process  at  ultimate  elements,  in  their  nature  incapable  of  further 
analysis,  or  whether  we  must  always  and  unavoidably  expect  to 
find  before  us  further  complexes  susceptible  of  a  similar  treatment. 
In  the  preceding  chapter  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  it  is  rash  to 
assume  that  any  given  experience  is  not  further  analyzable,  merely 
on  the  ground  that  it  does  not  at  once  reveal  itself  to  be  complex. 
Direct  introspection  is  too  coarse  an  instrument  to  reveal  all  the 
parts  of  that  which  we  may  have  good  reason  to  believe  composed 
of  parts.  But  this  prudent  reflection  leaves  unanswered  the  ques- 
tion whether  there  is  a  point  at  which  a  further  analysis  becomes, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  impossible,  or  whether  the  process  of 
subdivision  by  analysis  is  theoretically  without  limit. 

Various  considerations  may  be  advanced  in  support  of  the 
latter  of  these  alternatives.  "  Abstract  the  many  relations  from 
the  one  thing,"  argues  Mr.  Green,1  "and  there  is  nothing."  We 
have  seen  that  there  is  no  great  force  in  his  argument,  for  it  is 
substantially  the  one  criticised  above  as  denying  the  fundamental 
distinction  between  form  and  matter.  It  may  be  held  again  that, 
since  space  and  time  are  infinitely  divisible,  every  experience  given 
in  space  and  time  must  be  infinitely  divisible,  too,  and  it  is  hopeless 
to  attempt  to  isolate  the  simple  and  uncompounded.  For  an  answer 
to  this  objection  we  must  wait,  as  I  have  indicated  above,  until  we 
come  to  certain  chapters  in  which  the  nature  of  space  and  time  is 
more  carefully  investigated.  It  will  there  appear  that  no  true 
argument  may  be  drawn  from  this  source  against  the  possible 
existence  of  ultimate  and  unanalyzable  consciousness-elements. 

But  it  may  be  urged  still  again  that  we  cannot  know  a  thing 
without  knowing  what  it  is,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  know 
what  it  is  without  comparing  it  with  other  things,  i.e.  without 
defining  or  classifying  it.  Definition  seems  to  imply  the  resolution 
of  the  object  defined  into  its  constituent  elements.  If  we  define 
man,  in  the  traditional  way,  to  be  a  rational  animal,  we  give  genus 
and  difference — what  assimilates  him  to  other  objects  belonging 
to  a  certain  class,  and  what  marks  him  out  from  all  other  objects 
1  "  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,"  §  28. 


68  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

of  that  class.  Anything  that  we  cannot  thus  separate  into  its 
elements  we  cannot  define,  and  anything  which  we  cannot  define 
we  cannot  recognize  as  similar  to  or  different  from  anything  else. 
Such  a  thing  can  in  no  true  sense  be  an  object  of  knowledge,  for 
we  simply  do  not  know  what  it  is. 

It  is  not  hard  to  discover  in  this  argument  a  confusion  between 
the  thing  of  which  we  are  supposed  to  be  talking  and  the  relations 
in  which  this  thing  may  stand  to  other  things.  If  to  know  what  a 
thing  is  is  taken  as  meaning  to  know  the  thing  in  its  relations  to 
other  things,  of  course  it  follows  that  a  single  element  of  con- 
sciousness, abstracted  from  all  others,  cannot  be  known  as  this 
thing  or  that.  To  know  what  a  thing  is  appears  to  be  equivalent 
to  knowing  the  thing  and  a  number  of  other  things  besides.  No 
reasonable  man  would  care  to  deny  that  such  a  knowledge  as  this 
must  be  complex. 

But  we  do  not  accept  such  a  knowledge  as  an  absolute  unit 
and  use  it  as  such;  we  separate  it  into  its  constituents,  and  run  over 
these  one  by  one.  We  distinguish  the  thing  itself  from  the  rela- 
tions in  which  it  stands  to  other  things,  and  we  distinguish  single 
relations  from  each  other.  The  only  question  about  which  there 
can  be  any  legitimate  dispute  is,  whether,  in  every  case,  these 
constituents  of  our  admittedly  complex  experience  must  be,  in  their 
turn,  complex.  Undoubtedly  each  of  them  may  be  grouped  with 
other  elements,  we  may  seek  to  know  what  each  is  by  bringing  it  into 
relation  with  all  sorts  of  other  things;  but  this  does  not  in  the  least 
imply  that  we  confuse  it  with  the  other  things  with  which  we  bring 
it  into  relation,  or  with  the  relations  in  which  it  stands  to  such.  The 
thing  (I  use  the  word  in  the  broadest  possible  sense)  is  not  strictly 
identical  with  any  of  these,  and  is  not  proved  to  be  complex  by 
pointing  out  that  when  it  is  combined  with  these  the  result  is  a 
complex. 

A  knowledge  that  a  thing  is,  and  a  knowledge  of  what  a  thing 
is,  if  by  the  latter  we  mean  to  indicate  a  knowledge  of  the  thing 
in  relation  to  other  things,  should  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
each  other.  It  is  not  legitimate  to  assume  that,  because  we  do  not 
happen  to  have  the  latter,  we  do  not  have  any  knowledge  at  all. 
If  it  is  possible  to  distinguish,  as  we  have  seen  it  is,  between  some 
object  in  consciousness  and  the  relations  in  which  this  object  stands 
to  others,  there  certainly  ought  to  be  some  word  to  indicate  the 
consciousness  of  that  object  abstracted  from  the  relations  in  which 


The  Elements  in  Consciousness  69 

it  stands  to  others,  and  it  ought  to  be  possible  to  contrast  such  a 
knowledge  with  a  knowledge  which  includes  these  relations.  The 
force  of  the  objection  made  above  to  the  presence  in  consciousness 
of  simple  elements  evidently  depends  upon  the  tacit  assumption 
that  it  is  impossible  to  know  a  thing  in  any  manner  whatever 
without  knowing  what  it  is,  in  the  manner  described.  Such  an 
assumption  is  sufficiently  refuted  by  showing  that  it  is  impossible 
even  to  describe  the  complicated  process  of  knowing  what  a  thing 
is,  without  recognizing  the  presence  of  acts  of  knowledge  of  a 
more  elementary  kind.  The  question  of  the  propriety  of  using 
the  word  "  know "  to  indicate  such  is  a  purely  verbal  one,  and 
need  not  detain  us. 

It  is  worth  while  to  point  out  that  this  argument  against  the 
possibility  of  knowing  simple  elements  in  consciousness  may  be 
urged  with  equal  force  against  the  possibility  of  knowing  complexes 
in  consciousness  which  have  not  yet  been  analyzed.  The  most 
ardent  champion  of  the  composite  nature  of  our  experience  will 
hardly  maintain  that  all  that  enters  into  his  experience  is,  not 
merely  analyzable,  but  already  analyzed.  It  must  follow  that 
whatever  he  has  not  at  any  time  analyzed  is  unknown ;  and  if 
it  is  a  fair  argument  to  bring  against  simple  elements  in  con- 
sciousness that  they  are  unknown,  it  is  an  equally  fair  argu- 
ment to  bring  against  unanalyzed  complexes  that  they  are 
unknown  also.  That  they  can  be  known  does  not  remove  the 
difficulty,  for  they  can  be  known  only  by  the  substitution  for  them 
of  other  unknown  things,  i.e.  other  unanalyzed  complexes.  All 
knowledge  must  rest  upon  the  unknown  as  much  in  the  one  case  as 
in  the  other,  the  only  difference  being  that  here  the  unknown 
becomes  a  shifting  one.  But  it  is  not  worth  while  to  spend  much 
time  over  this  argument  for  the  necessarily  composite  nature  of  all 
our  mental  states.  The  fundamental  error  upon  which  it  rests  is 
that,  while  it  insists  upon  their  complexity  and  maintains  that  we 
can  always  discern  them  to  be  composed  of  parts,  it  fails  to  recog- 
nize that  this  very  doctrine  necessarily  implies  that  we  must  in  some 
way  be  singly  conscious  of  those  parts  or  we  could  not  recognize 
our  complex  as  a  complex.  It  has  no  name  for  such  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  parts  of  a  complex  experience. 

There  is,  indeed,  good  reason  to  believe  that  our  sensations  and 
our  "ideas"  are  composed  of  simple  elements.  From  all  that  has 
preceded,  it  will  be  readily  understood  that  it  is  impossible  to  prove 


70  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

this  fact  by  direct  introspection.  The  only  way  to  prove  it  is  to 
show  that  such  an  assumption  harmonizes  best  with  our  knowledge 
as  a  whole,  and  offers  the  least  difficulties,  and  that  a  satisfactory 
explanation  can  be  given  of  the  fact  that  men  of  intelligence 
embrace  the  contrary  doctrine  and  defend  it  with  ardor.  As  to  the 
formal  element  in  consciousness,  it  has  been  maintained  that  rela- 
tions should  be  treated  in  a  coherent  way,  distinguished  as  distinct 
from  each  other  when  they  occur  at  different  places  or  different 
times,  and,  in  short,  reasoned  about  very  much  as  we  reason  about 
sensations.  It  seems  to  follow  that  complex  relations  may  be 
analyzed  into  simple  ones,  and  that  there  may  be  simplest  relations 
which  resist  any  further  analysis.  Certainly  geometrical  reason- 
ings recognize  the  presence  of  complexes,  and  endeavor  to  deter- 
mine the  constituents  which  enter  into  their  composition.  But 
when  all  this  is  admitted,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  we  have  no 
such  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  consciousness  as  would  make 
possible  a  detailed  description  of  the  individual  elements  which 
compose  it,  and  there  is  small  hope  that  such  a  knowledge  will  be 
attained  within  any  assignable  limit  of  time.  If  exception  be 
taken  to  the  use  of  the  word  "  description  "  in  such  a  connection, 
one  may  say,  instead,  such  a  knowledge  as  would  enable  us  to 
represent  to  ourselves  truly  the  simple  elements  which  enter  into 
our  complex  experiences.  What  it  is  to  represent  anything  has 
already  been  explained. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  SELF  OR  KNOWER 

DOUBTLESS  it  has  seemed  to  many  of  those  who  have  read  the 
preceding  chapter  that  its  most  characteristic  feature  is  one  glaring 
omission.  Where  is  the  hero  of  the  whole  piece  ?  Where  is  the 
self  that  perceives  sensations,  has  memories,  pictures  ideal  scenes, 
distinguishes  between  material  and  formal  elements,  and  bustles 
about  upon  the  stage  before  which  the  curtain  has  been  raised? 
To  deny  the  existence  of  this  self,  and  to  deny  that  it  is  immedi- 
ately perceived  to  busy  itself  in  divers  ways  seems  little  short  of 
madness.  Do  we  not  say :  I  see,  I  hear,  I  touch,  I  taste,  I  smell, 
I  think,  I  feel,  I  will  ?  A  sensation  is  always  experienced  by 
some  one  ;  a  thought  is  thought  by  some  one  ;  an  emotion  does  not 
float  about  unattached,  like  a  storm-tossed  bit  of  seaweed,  or  a  dry 
leaf  riding  on  the  wind.  It  is  useless  to  try  to  persuade  the  plain 
man  that  he  is  not  conscious  of  himself  as  well  as  of  other  things, 
and  that  he  does  not  do  and  suffer.  As  well  try  to  persuade  him 
that  he  has  no  consciousness  at  all. 

But  it  is  a  misconception  of  what  has  been  said  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter  to  suppose  that  it  denies  these  experiences  upon  which 
the  plain  man  so  stoutly  insists,  and  which  certainly  no  one  has  a 
right  to  overlook.  We  are  conscious  of  self,  and  we  do  have 
experiences  that  we  call  knowing,  feeling,  willing,  comparing,  etc. 
In  the  last  chapter,  however,  we  were  not  concerned  with  complex 
experiences  as  complexes,  but  were  endeavoring  to  fix  certain 
broad  distinctions  which  mark  the  elements  of  which  these  are 
composed.  We  were  concerned  with  the  elements  of  conscious- 
ness merely,  and  can  be  accused  of  an  oversight  only  if  it  can  be 
shown  that  in  our  complex  experiences  there  is  present  something 
that  cannot  be  made  to  fall  within  any  of  the  classes  there  recog- 
nized ;  something  so  different  that  it  must  stand  alone  and  as  con- 
trasted with  all  else.  That  the  experiences  adduced  above  contain 
such  an  element  cannot  be  satisfactorily  established  by  accepting 

71 


72  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

the  testimony  of  the  plain  man,  who  knows  little,  as  we  have  seen, 
of  the  separate  elements  which  enter  into  his  experience,  and  is 
capable  of  giving  very  foolish  answers  when  he  is  asked  to  indi- 
cate them ;  and  it  is  equally  clear  that  even  the  psychologist  can- 
not depend  upon  so  coarse  an  instrument  as  direct  introspection  in 
the  ultimate  analysis  of  mental  complexes,  and  has  no  right  to  say 
offhand  just  what  elements  they  do  or  do  not  contain. 

Hence,  it  is  no  refutation  of  the  preceding  account  of  the  con- 
tent of  consciousness  merely  to  adduce  the  experience  which  we 
call  the  consciousness  of  self,  and  to  point  to  the  fact  of  knowledge. 
He  who  accepts  that  account  will  maintain  that  these  things  are 
complexes,  which  may  be  resolved  into  the  elements  he  has  recog- 
nized, and  which  can  only  be  clearly  understood  when  they  are 
seen  to  be  capable  of  such  an  analysis.  He  will  insist  that  he  is 
not  denying  the  experiences  at  all,  but  is  merely  showing  what 
they  really  are,  and  is  clearing  away  needless  obscurity  and  mis- 
conception. It  is,  of  course,  possible  to  hold  that  his  analysis  is 
an  unsatisfactory  one.  But  one  who  takes  this  position  should 
not  content  himself  with  baldly  stating  that  fact ;  he  should  prove 
it  by  showing  that  it  does  not  satisfactorily  adjust  itself  to  our 
knowledge  as  a  whole ;  and  he  should  likewise  show  that  what  he 
has  to  offer  in  place  of  it  does  not  contain  what  is  incomprehensible 
and  self-contradictory.  It  is  of  importance  to  remark  that  both 
parties  to  the  dispute  accept  such  experiences  as  the  conscious- 
ness of  self  and  the  knowledge  of  things.  The  only  question  at 
issue  is :  How  are  such  experiences  to  be  analyzed,  or  are  they  to 
be  analyzed  at  all  ? 

Those  who  hold  that  in  addition  to  the  elements  which  have 
above  been  recognized  as  constituting  the  content  of  consciousness, 
there  must  also  be  recognized  a  self  or  knower,  which  cannot  be 
resolved  into  a  number  of  such  elements,  but  must  be  regarded  as 
something  of  a  quite  different  kind,  lay  emphasis  upon  such  ex- 
pressions as  :  I  see,  I  hear,  I  think,  and  the  experiences  which  they 
call  up.  A  sight  cannot  see  itself,  they  insist,  nor  can  a  sound  hear 
itself.  Thought  without  a  thinker  is  something  incomprehensible. 
Are  we,  they  ask,  to  regard  it  as  without  significance  that  we  speak 
of  "  bringing  objects  within  the  focus  of  attention,"  "  directing  "  the 
attention  to  this  or  that,  or  "  holding"  something  before  the  atten- 
tion ?  Do  we  not  in  the  use  of  such  phrases  plainly  indicate  that 
there  is  a  something  which  is  busying  itself  about  the  objects, 


The  Self  or  Knower  73 

turning,  in  a  certain  sense  of  that  word,  toward  them  or  from  them, 
summoning  them  before  it  or  dismissing  them  as  no  longer  of  in- 
terest ?  Such  phrases  have  been  freely  used  in  the  preceding  pages, 
and  it  may  be  asked  with  what  right  this  has  been  done,  when  it 
is  denied  that  there  exists  anything  that  either  "  brings  "  objects 
before  it  or  "  directs  "  attention  to  them. 

Furthermore,  and  this  is  perhaps  the  point  upon  which  the  most 
emphasis  is  laid  at  the  present  day,  it  is  pointed  out  that  conscious- 
ness is  highly  complex,  and  yet  our  knowledge  may  be  said  to 
possess  a  certain  unity.  Colors,  sounds,  tastes,  touches,  memories 
—  why  does  not  every  element  of  these  exist  absolutely  by  itself 
and  for  itself?  Why  does  each  stand  in  relation  to  other  ele- 
ments and  help  to  form  a  whole  ?  Things  are  known  together :  we 
run  over  many  elements  in  succession,  and  then  group  them  as  a 
total :  we  do  not  lose  one  in  gaining  the  other,  nor  does  one  take 
the  place  of  the  other ;  they  exist  in  our  thought  side  by  side,  and 
constitute  its  parts.  Two  sensations  in  the  mind  of  one  man  belong 
to  each  other  in  a  very  different  way  from  two  sensations  each  of 
which  exists  in  the  mind  of  a  separate  man.  Whence  the  differ- 
ence ?  Does  it  not  seem  as  if  the  mind  itself  gave  this  unity  to  its 
contents,  knit  together  elements  which  would  otherwise  fall  hope- 
lessly apart,  if,  indeed,  they  could  exist  at  all?  Must  not  some 
principle  of  unity  be  assumed,  if  the  coexistence  of  things  in  any 
fashion  is  to  be  rendered  comprehensible  ? 

To  some  of  these  questions  it  is  not  possible  to  give  a  complete 
answer  at  the  present  stage  of  our  discussion.  But  it  is  suffi- 
ciently  easy  to  point  out  that  the  assumption  of  a  "  knower  "  to  per- 
form the  various  functions  indicated  above  is  a  gratuitous  one,  and 
rests  upon  misconception.  Any  principle  or  agent  the  existence 
of  which  is  assumed  in  order  to  account  for  certain  experienced 
facts  should  really  account  for  them ;  that  is,  it  should  be  capable 
of  making  comprehensible  the  manner  of  their  occurrence.  It  will 
not  do  to  make  the  facts  their  own  explanation,  to  assume  the  exist- 
ence of  an  agent  whose  whole  being  is,  as  it  were,  a  shadow  cast  by 
the  things  it  is  assumed  to  explain.  It  was  thus  that  "  occult  "  qual- 
ities were  once  assumed  as  the  explanation  of  observed  phenomena  ; 
that  the  possession  of  a  "  dormitive  virtue  "  was  made  to  account 
for  the  soporific  properties  of  opium.  It  is  thus  that  mental  "fac- 
ulties "  of  various  kinds  are  still  used  in  some  quarters  to  explain  the 
divers  sorts  of  mental  phenomena.  How  the  dormitive  virtue  of 


74  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

opium  brings  about  its  results,  and  how  mental  "  faculties  "  produce 
their  effects  it  is  not  pretended  to  explain.  It  is  simply  assumed 
that  they  are  the  causes  of  the  phenomena  under  observation ;  and 
since  all  occurrences  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have  adequate 
causes  of  their  existence,  it  is  assumed  that  these  causes  must  be  ad- 
equate to  produce  these  effects.  It  is  evident  that  any  such  expla- 
nation adds  no  whit  to  our  knowledge  of  the  thing  to  be  explained. 
It  is,  as  has  been  said,  nothing  more  than  the  shadow  cast  by  the 
fact  itself. 

If,  therefore,  we  are  to  assume  the  existence  of  a  "  knower"  or 
"  self  "  distinct  from  the  elements  recognized  in  the  preceding  pages 
as  constituting  our  consciousness,  we  must  be  able  to  prove  that 
we  are  not  dealing  with  a  shadow  of  this  kind ;  we  must  show,  and 
not  merely  say,  that  such  a  self  can  perform  the  functions  attributed 
to  it.  We  must,  in  short,  have  something  to  stand  upon  other 
than  the  mere  facts  it  is  desired  to  explain. 

Here  it  may  be  objected  that  we  have  at  least  the  existence  of 
the  self  given  in  consciousness,  whereas  no  one  pretends  to  perceive 
directly  either  the  dormitive  virtue  of  opium  or  the  mental  facul- 
ties distinct  from  the  various  classes  of  mental  phenomena.  And 
it  may  be  maintained  that  if  this  be  so,  even  if  we  cannot  describe 
in  detail  how  the  self  knows  things  and  does  things,  we  can  at 
least  assert  with  confidence  that  it  exists,  and  is  somehow  con- 
cerned in  these  operations.  Such  a  fact  alone  would  be  enough  to 
take  it  out  of  the  shadowy  realm  of  occult  qualities,  and  make  our 
explanation,  if  incomplete,  at  least  something  more  than  a  mere 
tautology. 

But  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  very  point  in  dispute 
is  the  existence  in  consciousness  of  such  a  self  as  is  here  claimed. 
Were  the  self  a  something  in  consciousness  that  stood  out  vividly, 
as  do  material  objects  which  we  examine  under  a  good  light,  the 
quarrel  would  be  settled  at  once.  That  it  is  not  something  which 
can  be  thus  inspected,  any  one  can  satisfy  himself  by  attempting 
to  get  a  good  look  at  it  and  to  describe  it.  Its  indefinite  and  elu- 
sive character  is  abundantly  evidenced  by  the  efforts  which  have 
been  made  by  philosophers  and  psychologists  to  give  a  satisfactory 
account  of  it,  and  by  their  attribution  to  it  of  incomprehensible 
and  contradictory  qualities.  It  is  very  clear  that  they  have  been 
groping  in  the  dark,  and  have  not  been  describing  something  seen 
under  a  good  light.  Hence,  the  existence  in  consciousness  of  such 


The  Self  or  Knower  75 

a  self  as  is  described  above  must  not  be  assumed  at  the  outset,  but 
must  be  reached,  if  at  all,  as  the  result  of  a  process  of  reasoning. 
It  must  be  shown  that  the  assumption  is  a  reasonable  one,  and  that 
by  the  assumption  of  such  a  something  in  consciousness  we  can 
explain  how  attention  is  directed  to  this  or  that,  how  diverse  ele- 
ments in  a  consciousness  are  held  together  in  a  certain  unity. 

This  demand  is  not  met  by  those  who  assume  the  existence  of 
the  self  under  discussion.  Their  assumption  is  not  a  purely  gra- 
tuitous one,  and  it  can  be  given  at  least  a  psychological  explanation, 
as  will  be  shown  below.  But  it  does  not  really  explain  any  of 
the  facts  it  is  desired  to  explain,  and  on  examination  it  proves  to 
be  no  better  than  the  assumption  of  "occult"  qualities. 

For  example,  although  it  is  insisted  that  this  self  knows  the 
other  things  in  consciousness,  it  is  not  in  the  least  indicated  how 
it  knows  them.  What  is  its  knowledge,  and  wherein  does  it 
consist  ?  The  thing  known  is  what  it  is,  and  the  knower  is  what 
it  is.  They  are  distinct  and  different;  what  is  the  bond  which 
unites  them  ?  Is  the  knowledge  something  distinct  and  different 
from  both  knower  and  known  ?  What  manner  of  thing  is  it,  and 
how  shall  we  represent  it  to  ourselves  ?  If  one  thing  can  know 
another  different  from  it,  what  nature  must  it  have  in  order  to 
exercise  this  function?  Why  cannot  one  sensation  know  another, 
or  a  picture  in  the  memory  know  an  emotion  ?  Can  we  represent 
to  ourselves  with  any  degree  of  clearness  some  element1  in  con- 
sciousness which  stands  to  the  other  elements  in  a  wholly  different 
relation  from  that  in  which  they  stand  to  each  other?  Can  we 
endow  it  with  some  attribute  which  will  make  comprehensible  its 
activity  in  knowing? 

To  all  such  questions  we  receive  no  answer.  The  whole  sub- 
ject lies  buried  in  Egyptian  darkness,  and  we  are  forced  to  content 
ourselves  with  words  and  phrases,  with  mere  repetitions  of  the 
statement  that  the  knower  does  know.  When  we  are  told  that 
the  walker  does  walk,  it  means  something  to  us  ;  he  possesses 
legs,  and  his  activity  is  not  incomprehensible.  But  the  knowing 
of  the  knower  remains  something  occult ;  it  lies  in  a  well  so  deep 
that  there  is  no  evidence  that  truth  is  to  be  found  at  the  bottom. 

So  it  is  also  when  we  weigh  the  phrases  which  are  used  to  indi- 
cate the  movements  of  the  attention.  That  some  elements  in 

1  As  the  reader  may  see,  I  use  the  word  il  element "  here  in  rather  a  loose  sense  ; 
I  found  no  argument  upon  the  mere  word. 


76  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

consciousness  stand  out  more  vividly  than  others,  and  that  there  is 
constant  change  in  this  respect,  we  know  by  direct  observation. 
But  when  we  speak  of  "  directing  "  the  attention  or  "  holding " 
something  before  the  attention,  do  we  mean  to  indicate  that  one 
element  in  consciousness,  the  self  or  knower,  is  perceived  to  be 
treating  another  element  in  some  definite  way  ?  The  phrases  have, 
of  course,  their  origin  in  a  material  analogy.  A  man  holds  an 
object  before  him  in  his  hand  when  he  wishes  to  look  at  it ;  he 
turns  his  head  and  directs  his  eyes  toward  another  object  which 
he  wishes  to  examine.  But  these  are  bodily  movements,  and 
serve  only  as  a  rude  image  of  the  peculiar  activity  attributed  to 
the  knower.  What  is  the  nature  of  that  activity  ?  How  does 
the  self  in  consciousness  make  some  elements  advance  into  a  posi- 
tion of  greater  prominence  and  others  retreat  into  obscurity? 
We  are  granted  no  hint  of  the  nature  of  its  activity,  and  it  appears 
to  be  assumed  that  it  can  do  such  things,  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  such  things  do  happen. 

Finally,  we  ask,  how  does  the  knower,  an  element  in  conscious- 
ness among  other  elements,  hold  things  together  and  create  a 
unity  in  diversity  ?  If  this  knower  is  any  way  composite,  it  is 
fair  to  ask  what  holds  its  parts  together ;  and  if  it  is  not  com- 
posite, but  exists  as  a  simple  element  of  some  sort  in  consciousness, 
we  may  well  inquire  what  means  such  an  element  possesses  for 
holding  together  other  elements  different  from  itself.  Hands  it 
has  not ;  and  mere  material  analogies  will  not  serve  to  make  clear 
the  method  of  its  procedure.  How  can  a  self  hold  together  colors 
and  sounds,  any  better  than  a  sensation  of  touch  can  hold  together 
tastes  and  smells  ?  Can  even  the  faintest  hint  be  given  of  what 
it  is  to  thus  hold  things  together  ?  If  it  cannot,  it  is  very  clear 
that  we  are  dealing  with  mere  words,  and  are  not  in  the  least 
explaining  the  unity  of  consciousness  and  the  knowing  of  things 
together.  In  reasoning  thus  we  are  first  assuming  that  an  expla- 
nation is  necessary,  that  things  would  not  stay  together  unless 
held  together,  and  then  taking  refuge  in  an  occult  quality  as  fur- 
nishing the  explanation  desired ;  in  other  words,  we  are  simply 
making  a  fact  to  be  explained,  its  own  explanation. 

It  seems  odd  that  reasonings  so  loose  should  impress  any 
thoughtful  person  as  worthy  of  acceptance,  but,  as  has  been  indi- 
cated, it  is  possible  to  give  at  least  a  psychological  explanation  of 
the  fact  that  they  carry  conviction  to  many  minds.  Their  infiu- 


The  Self  or  Knower  77 

ence  is  not  incomprehensible  when  we  reflect  upon  the  genesis  of 
the  traditional  knowing  self  that  has  been  such  a  stone  of  stum- 
bling to  the  speculative  mind. 

It  is  generally  accepted  among  psychologists  that,  at  an  early 
stage  of  the  mind's  development,  the  chief  constituent  of  the 
notion  of  the  self,  and  perhaps  the  only  one  that  stands  out  with 
sufficient  clearness  to  occupy  the  attention,  is  the  idea  of  the  body. 
When  the  child  says,  "  I  see,"  "  I  hear,"  "  I  feel,"  he  is  not  think- 
ing of  the  self  of  the  philosophers,  but  is  recognizing  the  fact  that, 
given  his  body  in  such  and  such  a  relation  to  other  objects,  he  has 
certain  experiences.  His  body  stands  over  against  other  objects 
and  is  distinguished  from  them.  It  sees  with  its  eyes,  hears  with 
its  ears,  feels  with  its  hands.  It  not  only  sees,  hears,  and  feels 
other  objects,  but  also  sees,  hears,  and  feels  itself.  It  perceives 
not  merely  that  it  is  acted  upon,  but  also  that  it  acts  upon  other 
things,  bringing  about  changes  in  them.  It  is  the  constant  factor 
in  experience,  while  the  objects  with  which  it  occupies  itself  suc- 
ceed one  another  in  a  more  or  less  rapid  succession.  Moreover, 
it  is  an  interesting  object,  with  which  are  bound  up  in  a  peculiar 
manner  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  the  individual.  No  wonder 
it  becomes  the  centre  of  the  little  world  in  which  it  has  its  being, 
a  world  concrete,  unreflective,  external,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to 
use  this  relative  word  when  the  correlative  cannot  as  yet  be 
regarded  as  having  made  its  way  into  the  light  of  clear  conscious- 
ness—  at  least  a  world  objective  and  material  in  the  sense  that 
what  comes  later  to  be  recognized  as  objective  and  material 
almost  wholly  constitutes  it.  And  from  the  crude  materialism  of 
the  infant  mind  to  the  crude  animism  of  the  savage  the  step  is 
but  a  short  one.  That  duplicate  of  the  body,  which  in  dreams 
walks  abroad,  sees  and  is  seen,  and  acts  as  the  body  acts,  has 
simply  taken  the  place  of  the  body  as  knower  and  doer,  and  its 
knowing  and  doing  obtain  their  significance  in  the  same  experi- 
ence. The  thought  of  the  child  is  duplicated  in  the  new  world 
opened  up  by  the  beginnings  of  reflection. 

Now,  I  believe  that  the  student  of  the  history  of  philosophy 
who  is  able  to  read  between  the  lines  can  see  in  the  highly  abstract 
and  inconsistent  self  of  the  later  philosophers  a  something  that 
has  grown  by  a  process  of  refinement  from  these  rude  beginnings. 
We  find  early  in  the  history  of  thought  a  material  soul  which 
knows  things  by  contact  with  the  effluxes  thrown  off  from  mate- 


78  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

rial  objects.  It  is  an  object  among  other  objects,  as  is  the  body, 
and  the  nature  of  its  knowing  is  clearly  analogous  to  that  of  the 
body.  We  have,  later,  a  soul  in  part  fettered  to  the  body,  and, 
as  it  were,  semi-material.  We  have,  finally,  a  soul  abstract  and 
unmeaning,  a  shade,  a  survival  from  a  more  concrete  and  unre- 
fiective  past. 

It  would  be  wearisome  to  attempt  anything  like  an  exhaustive 
examination  of  the  opinions  of  philosophers,  ancient  and  modern, 
in  support  of  the  above  assertion,  but  a  mere  glance  at  a  few  of 
them  may  not  be  out  of  place.  The  philosophers  have  recog- 
nized, almost  from  the  beginning,  the  distinction  between  that 
which  knows,  the  mind,  soul,  or  reason,  and  thing  known,  which 
may  be  either  an  external  thing  or  a  psychical  state. 

It  is  difficult  to  select  from  among  such  a  cloud  of  witnesses, 
but  I  may  mention,  in  passing,  among  the  ancients,  Anaxagoras, 
Democritus,  Plato,  Aristotle,  the  Stoics,  the  Epicureans  and  the 
Sceptics,  in  all  of  whom  the  distinction  is  sufficiently  emphasized. 
Thales  doubtless  distinguished  in  an  unanalytic  way  between  him- 
self and  the  objects  of  his  knowledge,  but  in  what  little  we  know 
of  his  doctrine,  his  ideas  upon  this  subject  do  not  come  to  the 
surface.  Perhaps  the  problem  of  knowledge  had  not  presented 
itself  to  him  as  a  problem.  With  the  progress  of  reflective  thought 
it  comes  more  and  more  into  view,  and  the  knower  grows,  I  cannot 
say  more  definite,  but  at  least  more  definitely  an  object  of  discus- 
sion. At  the  same  time  the  knower  grows  on  the  whole  less  con- 
crete and  material,  though  the  chronological  order  and  the  order 
of  logical  development  do  not  absolutely  coincide.  This  is  easily 
seen  when  one  compares  the  teachings  of  Anaxagoras  and  Democ- 
ritus with  what  Plato  and  Aristotle  have  to  tell  us  of  the  nature 
of  the  mind.  The  distinction  made  by  the  latter  between  the 
reason  and  the  lower  psychical  functions  has  a  flavor  of  the  mod- 
ern distinction  between  the  rational  and  the  empirical  self,  a  topic 
upon  which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  dwell  a  little  below. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  detail  in  speaking  of  matters 
so  familiar  as  these  to  students  of  philosophy.  It  is  sufficient  to 
remind  them  that  the  impression  which  the  Greek  philosophy  as 
a  whole  makes  upon  the  modern  mind,  notwithstanding  the  devel- 
opment which  it  took  in  the  hands  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  is  that 
it  represents  the  thought  of  a  people  to  whom  it  was  not  un- 
natural to  think  of  the  mind  as  a  breath,  a  fire,  a  collection  of 


The  Self  or  Knower  79 

atoms,  —  a  something  not  widely  different  from  the  body,  and  the 
relation  of  which  to  the  objects  of  its  knowledge  was  essentially 
similar  to  that  which  obtains  between  the  body  and  the  objects 
which  surround  it.  And  it  is  well  to  remember  that,  even  when 
Aristotle  has  endeavored  to  purge  his  notion  of  the  Divine  Mind, 
the  First  Cause  of  Motion,  of  all  material  elements,  he  can  still 
conceive  of  it  as  touching  the  world,  although  it  remains  itself  un- 
touched.1 It  sets  the  spheres  revolving,  after  all,  in  somewhat 
the  same  way  in  which  the  Nous  of  Anaxagoras  sets  in  motion  the 
little  particles  which  are  by  their  combinations  to  form  a  world. 

Such  a  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  self  or  knower  does  not 
appear  very  different  from  that  entertained  by  one  who  has  gotten 
so  far  as  to  distinguish  between  mind  and  body,  but  has  not  re- 
flected much  upon  his  conception  of  mind.  To  be  sure,  we  moderns 
are  not  in  the  position  of  the  ancient  Greek.  There  has  been  much 
speculation  upon  these  matters  since,  and  the  fruits  of  this  specu- 
lation have  to  a  great  extent  become  common  property.  Even  the 
plain  man  has  heard  the  soul  spoken  of  as  immaterial,  and  he  is 
apt  to  repudiate  with  energy  all  talk  of  identifying  it  with  atoms, 
or  attributing  to  it  extension  in  space.  Nevertheless,  he  conceives 
it  as  in  some  vague  way  within  his  body,  and  present  to  the  objects 
of  its  knowledge.  When  he  has  learned  something  of  the  impres- 
sions made  upon  the  sense-organs,  and  of  the  knowledge  of  things 
through  representative  images,  his  doctrine  may  justly  be  regarded 
as  merely  a  refinement  of  the  ancient  doctrine  of  effluxes  from 
objects,  which  penetrate  to  the  mind  through  the  avenues  of  the 
senses.  Whatever  inherited  and  contradictory  forms  of  expres- 
sion he  may  use  in  describing  the  mind,  he  nevertheless  thinks  of 
it  as  a  thing  among  other  things,  present  to  them  in  somewhat  the 
same  way  in  which  the  body  is  present  to  the  objects  upon  which 
it  directs  its  eyes ;  and  when  he  speaks  of  the  mind  as  knowing, 
it  is  this  latter  experience  that  gives  its  content  and  significance 
to  his  thought. 

He  does  not  take  quite  seriously  the  refinements  of  later  specu- 
lation, for,  indeed,  they  cannot  really  be  taken  very  seriously. 
They  can  be  assented  to  only  in  words.  As  early  as  Plotinus  the 
soul  or  subject  of  knowledge  has  definitely  put  on  the  incompre- 
hensible aspect  with  which  later  speculation  so  constantly  clothed 

1  Gen.  et  Corr.,  I,  6,  322,  b,  21.  See  also  Zeller,  "  Die  Philosophic  cler  Griechen, 
Aristoteles  und  die  alteu  Peripatetiker,"  Leipzig,  1879,  pp.  357,  377. 


80  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

it.  It  is  not  in  space;  or  rather  it  is  in  space  in  an  unintelligible 
and  inconsistent  way;  it  is  all  in  the  whole,  and  yet  all  in  every 
part  of  the  body.  It  is  divided  because  it  is  in  all  parts  of  the 
body,  and  undivided  because  it  is  in  its  entirety  in  every  part.1 
With  Augustine,  who  set  his  stamp  so  authoritatively  upon  the 
thinking  of  the  centuries  that  succeeded  his  own,  it  behaves  no 
better,  being  still  all  in  the  whole  and  all  in  every  part  of  the 
body.2  It  knows  itself  and  what  is  not  itself.  Its  properties  are 
not  related  to  it  as  material  qualities  are  to  material  substance ; 
they  share  in  its  substantiality,  although  it  has  them,  and  must 
not  be  regarded  as  being  them.  The  knowledge  of  the  mind  ex- 
tends beyond  the  spiritual  substance.  Objects  of  sense  become 
known  because  they  are  touched  by  the  various  senses.  Material 
qualities,  on  the  other  hand,  are  coextensive  with  the  substances 
in  which  they  inhere,  and  they  fall  within  the  same  limits.3  To 
make  this  confusion,  if  possible,  worse,  Cassiodorus  maintains  that 
the  soul,  which  knows  things  spiritual  and  material,  is,  as  a  whole, 
in  each  of  its  own  parts. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  for  any  human  being  to  represent  to 
himself  so  inconsistent  an  entity  as  a  soul  of  this  description.  If 
lie  asserts  that  he  believes  in  it,  we  must  charitably  suppose  that 
he  thinks  he  does  so,  and  must  then  endeavor  to  find  out  for 
ourselves  what  is  really  in  his  thought.  In  many  instances  it  is 
possible  to  discover  the  motive  which  has  lead  serious  men  to 
make  statements  so  fantastic,  and  seemingly  so  arbitrary.  In  the 
endeavor  to  distinguish  clearly  between  mind  and  body,  they  have 
gotten  farther  and  farther  away  from  that  primary  experience  in 
which  the  body  plays  so  important  a  part,  and  which  furnishes  the 
first  foundation  for  the  idea  of  one  thing  standing  over  against 
another  and  knowing  it.  But  it  is  clear  that  they  have  not  elimi- 
nated this  wholly  from  their  thought.  The}r  make  the  mind,  as  it 
were,  an  inconsistent  little  body,  an  ill-behaved  atom,  which  is  in 
space  and  yet  not  exactly  in  space ;  present  to  things,  and  yet  not 
present  to  things  as  bodies  are  present  to  each  other.  This  makes 
it  and  its  knowing  something  very  vague,  but  there  is  present  at 
least  a  suggestion,  drawn  from  experience,  that  prevents  the  sen- 
tences used  to  describe  them  from  impressing  the  mind  as  a  quite 
meaningless  form  of  words. 

1  "Ennead,"  IV,  2,  1.  2  "De  Trinitate,"  VI,  8. 

3  "De  Civitate  Dei,"  IX,  5-8  ;  "  De  Trinitate,"  X,  10;  XII,  25;  X,  4. 


The  Self  or  Knower  81 

In  the  scholastic  philosophy  we  find  much  the  same  concep- 
tions as  in  the  period  preceding  it.  Everywhere  there  is  acknowl- 
edged a  knower  and  a  known  ;  and  this  knower,  which  knows  both 
itself  and  what  is  not  itself,  and  may  even  know  itself  more  cer- 
tainly than  it  knows  external  objects,  remains  throughout  a  mystery 
and  a  perplexity.  And  in  the  modern  philosophy,  until  we  come 
to  Hume,  the  problem  of  knowledge  remains  much  what  it  was 
before.  With  Bacon,  Hobbes,  and  Descartes  the  mind  is  still  the 
knower,  and  a  vague  and  shadowy  knower. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  that  Descartes,  who  announces  an  inten- 
tion never  to  be  governed  in  his  thinking  by  tradition  and  authority, 
and  a  determination  to  accept  as  true  only  what  he  clearly  and 
distinctly  perceives  to  be  true,  nevertheless  held  to  the  vaguely 
and  inconsistently  localized  soul  of  the  Schoolmen  and  their  prede- 
cessors. He  places  the  soul,  it  is  true,  in  the  little  pineal  gland 
in  the  midst  of  the  brain  ;  but  for  him  that  is  only  its  "  chief  seat "  ; 
it  is,  so  to  speak,  thickened  down  at  that  point  in  the  body,  but  it 
retains  its  nebulous  scholastic  diffusion  throughout  the  body  not- 
withstanding its  predilection  for  this  convenient  spot.  It  is  like  a 
divinity  which  can  best  be  influenced  by  supplication  at  a  given 
shrine,  but  whose  sphere  is  not  circumscribed  wholly  by  it.  Still, 
the  reader  of  Descartes  must  feel,  that  even  this  half-hearted 
attempt  to  place  the  soul  somewhere,  in  an  intelligible  sense  of 
that  word,  is  a  move  in  the  direction  of  an  earlier  conception,  and, 
hence,  a  move  in  the  direction  of  intelligibility.  It  at  least  means 
something  to  speak  of  this  or  that  as  in  the  pineal  gland ;  it  does 
not  really  mean  anything  to  speak  of  it  as  in  its  entirety  in  several 
places  at  once.  And  he  must  also  feel,  I  think,  if  he  be  one  of 
those  who  must  have  the  traditional  knower,  that  a  localization  in 
the  pineal  gland  seems  to  make  it  more  comprehensible  that  a 
knower  should  actually  know  things.  Did  not  Descartes  provide 
for  the  delivery  of  all  sorts  of  messages  to  it  at  that  little  central 
office  ?  Do  not  things  to  be  known  come  to  the  knower? 

The  position  taken  by  Spinoza  is  especially  interesting  and 
suggestive.  The  mind  he  regards  as  the  "  idea  "  of  the  body,  as 
that  mo J e  in  the  attribute  thought  which  corresponds  to  the  body, 
a  parallel  mode  in  the  attribute  extension.  Mind  and  body  do  noc 
interact  ;  they  merely  correspond,  since  they  are  aspects  of  the  one 
thing.  Man  is  a  physical  automaton  with  parallel  psychical  states. 
The  mind  is  a  complex  of  ideas,  and  may  be  called  the  knowledge 


82  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

of  the  body.  But  there  is  also  such  a  thing  as  the  idea  or  knowl- 
edge of  the  mind.  We  not  only  know  things,  but  we  know  that 
we  know.  How  shall  we  conceive  this  knowledge  ?  Spinoza 
maintains  that  this  knowledge  of  the  mind  is  related  to  the  mind 
precisely  as  the  mind  is  related  to  the  body.  He  finds  it  impos- 
sible, it  is  true,  to  keep  this  "  idea  "  of  the  mind  distinct  from  the 
mind  itself,  since  they  are  both  modes  in  the  one  attribute,  thought, 
and  are  not  different  modes.  He  first  distinguishes  them  and  then 
lets  them  melt  into  each  other. 

His  doctrine  is  not  consistent,  but  its  purpose  is  clear.  It 
appears  to  him  that  knowledge  demands  a  knower  and  a  known, 
and  he  cannot  conceive  the  knower  as  playing  the  part  of  both. 
He  therefore  explains  the  mind's  knowledge  of  itself  by  splitting 
it  into  a  fictitious  duality,  which  fades  again  into  unity.  He  thus 
rids  himself  of  that  inconceivable  chimera  the  "subject-object," 
which  knows  itself;  and  his  thought  retains  a  sufficiently  vivid 
suggestion  of  that  experience  from  which  our  notion  that  one 
thing  in  our  experience  can  know  another  is  drawn.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  remark  that  to  Spinoza  the  mind  is  composed  of  ideas ;  it  is 
not  a  something  distinct  from  them  and  behind  them ;  and  it  is 
not  localized  in  the  inconsistent  fashion  which  obtained  in  Scho- 
lasticism and  in  the  philosophy  which  preceded  it. 

In  Locke  there  appears  again  the  ambiguous  double  self,  the 
substance  or  substratum,  and  the  qualities  or  attributes  in  which 
it  makes  itself  manifest.  It  is  the  latter  that  we  directly  perceive  ; 
the  former  remains  "  an  uncertain  supposition  of  we  know  not 
what,"  but  to  which  is  attributed  the  function  of  holding  together 
the  ideas.  Berkeley,  the  Idealist,  basing  himself  upon  Locke's 
conclusions,  classifies  the  objects  of  human  knowledge  as  ideas  of 
sense,  ideas  of  memory  and  imagination,  the  passions  and  operations 
of  the  mind,  and  the  self  that  perceives  all  these.  Those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  "  Principles  "  will  remember  that  even  Berkeley's 
clear  and  graceful  sentences  leave  the  reader's  mind  in  a  hopeless 
confusion  regarding  this  last  object  and  the  nature  of  its  relation 
to  its  own  ideas. 

It  is  clear  that  none  of  the  above  doctrines  give  any  hint  of  how 
tlie  knower  is  able  to  know  things,  or  what  sort  of  an  activity 
knowing  may  be.  They  simply  assume  that  there  is  a  knower 
that  knows;  and,  however  fantastic  may  be  their  descriptions  of 
the  nature  of  such  a  being,  they  all  appear  to  rest  ultimately  upon 


The  Self  or  Knower  83 

the  experience  which  I  have  adduced  as  the  most  probable  explana- 
tion of  the  whole  notion  of  things  knowing  each  other.  It  is  not 
without  significance  that  the  act  of  knowing  appears  to  grow  more 
and  more  unintelligible  as  the  knower  becomes  more  refined  and 
sublimated.  But  before  proceeding  further  it  is  desirable  to  mark 
certain  distinctions  of  much  importance  to  clear  thinking,  but 
which  were  not  so  clearly  marked  as  they  might  have  been,  or  at 
least  were  not  given  due  weight,  in  the  mediseval  and  in  the  mod- 
ern philosophy  down  to  the  period  at  which  we  have  arrived. 

Leaving  out  Spinoza,  the  writers  whom  I  have  cited  appear 
to  recognize,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  a  dual  element  in  the  self  or 
knower.  It  is  a  substance  or  substratum  with  certain  properties  or 
attributes.  Locke  dwells  at  great  length  upon  this  distinction, 
and  concludes  that  the  properties  of  the  knower  or  self  may  be 
known  immediately  —  they  are  elements  in  consciousness,  or,  as 
he  expresses  it,  ideas  of  reflection.  The  "substratum"  self  he 
banishes  to  outer  darkness,  and  after  proving  that  there  is  no  con- 
ceivable way  by  which  we  can  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  its  exist- 
ence,1 he  assumes  it  to  exist,  by  an  act  of  violence. 

He  maintains,  moreover,  occupying,  as  he  does,  what  we  have 
called  the  psychological  standpoint,  that  our  immediate  knowledge, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  not  a  knowledge  of  self,  is  a  knowledge  merely  of 
sense-ideas,  or  representative  images  of  things.  The  things  them- 
selves lie  beyond  these  and  can  only  be  known  to  exist  by  infer- 
ence. Berkeley,  his  successor,  denied  the  justice  of  such  an 
inference  ;  and  while  holding,  apparently,  to  a  self  not  very  differ- 
ent from  that  put  forward  by  Locke,  refused  to  recognize  Locke's 
external  things  at  all.  Hume,  that  astute  and  admirable  analyst, 
applied  Berkeley's  argument  to  the  "  substratum  "  self  as  well  as 
to  external  things,  and  concluded  the  self  or  mind,  and  by  this  he 
means  to  include  all  that  is  immediately  known,  to  be  "but  a 
bundle  or  collection  of  different  perceptions  which  succeed  each 
other  with  inconceivable  rapidity,  and  are  in  a  perpetual  flux  and 
movement." 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by 
these  philosophers,  it  will  be  admitted  that  we  have  here  at  least 
a  clear  recognition  of  the  distinction  between  immediate  knowl- 
edge and  mediate,  facts  of  consciousness  and  that  which  may  be 
inferred  from  them.  This  is  in  itself  a  great  gain.  The  question 

1  "  An  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,"  Book  I,  Chapter  IV,  §  18. 


84  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

of  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  substrata  of  any  sort  is  seen 
to  be  a  legitimate  subject  for  investigation  ;  but  it  is  accepted 
that  anything  not  directly  found  in  consciousness  must  be  indirectly 
proved  to  exist,  and  that  the  proof  furnished  must  ultimately 
rest  upon  what  is  directly  given  in  consciousness. 

When  one  reflects  upon  the  illustration  of  the  prisoner  in  the  cell, 
and  when  one  realizes  what  it  is  to  know  things  mediately  and 
through  a  representative,  one  is  prepared  to  realize  the  importance 
of  the  distinction  between  phenomena  and  noumena,  between  what 
can  appear  in  consciousness  and  what  is  by  hypothesis  debarred 
from  being  thus  known  by  any  possibility  whatever.  One  is  also 
prepared  to  follow  Kant  in  banishing  noumena  from  the  realm  of 
things  knowable ;  indeed,  one  is  prepared,  if  one  be  consistent,  to 
go  further  than  Kant,  who  appears  to  the  unbiassed  reader  of  the 
"  Critiques  "  to  have  done  much  the  same  thing  that  Locke  did,  to 
have  denied  that  certain  things  could  be  known,  and  yet  to  have 
refused  to  quite  let  go  his  hold  upon  them.  His  hold,  however, 
is  so  slight  a  one,  and  it  is  so  manifestly  in  contradiction  with  his 
principles  to  retain  any  hold  at  all,  that  it  may  be  assumed  for  the 
purposes  of  this  discussion  that  he  repudiated  noumena  altogether. 

Kant  shuts  up  psychology  to  the  world  of  experience,  the  phe- 
nomenal world.  He  is  not,  however,  content  with  Hume's  "bundle  " 
of  perceptions,  but  distinguishes  between  the  multiplicity  of  psychi- 
cal elements  forming  the  content  of  consciousness  and  a  something, 
—  not  a  noumenon,  but  a  something  in  consciousness,  —  an  activity, 
or  whatever  one  may  choose  to  call  it,  which  makes  possible  the 
combination  of  this  multiplicity  into  the  unity  of  a  single  conscious- 
ness. On  this  depends  the  consciousness  "  I  think  "  which  accom- 
panies all  my  ideas.  The  empirical  self,  as  a  complex  of  psychical 
elements,  is  to  be  distinguished  from  this  rational  self.  This  doc- 
trine has  had,  and  still  has,  so  deep  an  influence,  that  it  is  especially 
worthy  of  note  in  any  historical  sketch  of  the  self  as  knower. 

The  distinction  between  the  empirical  self  and  the  rational  has 
been  taken  up  into  modern  psychology.  The  former  is  a  mental 
complex  which  has  been  analyzed  and  discussed  much  as  one 
analyzes  and  discusses  any  other  mental  content.  It  may,  it  is 
true,  be  difficult  to  enumerate  the  elements  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed; but  the  attitude  of  the  psychologist  toward  it  is  sufficiently 
definite,  and  the  only  mystery  that  the  subject  presents  is  the  mys- 
tery of  incomplete  knowledge. 


The  Self  or  Knoiver  85 

In  discussing  it  the  psychologist  at  least  means  something.  He 
applies  the  scientific  method,  aiming  at  and  hoping  for  clear  and 
exact  results.  He  is  dealing  with  sensations  and  memories,  and 
with  nothing  occult  and  incomprehensible.  Even  those  psycholo- 
gists who  emphasize  most  strongly  the  need  of  a  "knower"  to 
explain  the  facts  of  our  mental  life,  sometimes  find  in  this  empiri- 
cal self  such  elements  as  the  idea  of  the  body,  the  idea  of  personal 
possessions,  muscular  sensations  of  various  sorts,  and,  indeed,  just 
those  things  which  we  all  recognize  as  making  up  our  experience, 
which  we  do  not  think  of  as  knowing  themselves,  and  which  some 
of  us  assume  there  must  be  a  knower  to  know.  This  empirical  self 
is  admitted  to  be  highly  composite ;  it  is  what  a  man  has  in  mind 
when  he  thinks  of  himself  as  such  and  such  a  personality,  as  being 
different  in  capacity,  training,  character,  and  past  experience  from 
some  one  else.  It  was  the  identity  of  this  self  that  was  a  subject 
of  doubt,  and  needed  to  be  established,  in  the  case  of  the  old  woman 
who  awoke  with  curtailed  skirts  :  — 

"  If  it  be  I,  as  I  hope  it  be, 
I've  a  little  dog  at  home,  and  he'll  know  me." 

It  seems  absurd  to  lay  upon  such  a  self,  so  constituted,  the  bur- 
den of  performing  the  traditional  functions  of  a  knower.  How  can 
it  know  anything,  unless  all  sorts  of  elements  in  our  experience 
can  know  all  sorts  of  others  ?  And  how  can  it  hold  anything 
together?  It  is,  at  times,  not  even  successful  in  "staying 
together  "  itself,  as  is  clear  from  a  study  of  those  morbid  condi- 
tions which  have  been  classed  together  as  diseases  of  the  person- 
ality, as  well  as  from  those  temporary  derangements  of  the  person- 
ality observed  in  hypnotic  subjects.  It  needs  itself  to  be  held 
together,  if  anything  does. 

Kant  distinguishes  between  such  a  complex  and  the  rational 
self,  which  is  to  do  for  this  complex  and  for  other  elements  in  con- 
sciousness what  this  multiplicity  of  elements  cannot  do  for  itself. 
He  does  not  make  clear  what  this  rational  self  is,  and  he  gives  no 
indication  whatever  of  the  way  in  which  it  brings  about  the  results 
attributed  to  its  activity.  His  idea  was  elaborated  by  his  intellectual 
descendants,  a  rather  numerous  body,  not  entirely  at  one  among 
themselves,  but  nevertheless  addicted  to  much  the  same  way  of 
thinking.  As  the  protagonist  of  these  I  shall  take  Professor 
T.  H.  Green,  although  I  do  not  mean  to  make  all  neo-Kantians 
or  neo-Hegelians  responsible  for  all  of  his  utterances. 


86  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

Mr.  Green  repudiated  the  Kantian  noumenon  and  avowedly  con- 
fined human  knowledge  to  the  field  of  experience,  but  he  did  not 
approve  a  Humian  experience  consisting  of  a  bundle  of  percepts. 
He  found  it  necessary  to  assume  in  experience  a  principle  of 
synthetic  unity;  a  principle  not  to  be  confounded  with  any  of 
the  elements  making  up  the  experience,  nor  subject  to  their  con- 
ditions ;  a  principle  which,  in  some  fashion,  knits  together  the 
manifold  of  sense  into  an  organic  unity.  "  Thus,"  he  writes,1 
"in  order  that  successive  feelings  may  be  related  objects  of 
experience,  even  objects  related  in  the  way  of  succession,  there 
must  be  in  consciousness  an  agent  which  distinguishes  itself  from 
the  feelings,  uniting  them  in  their  severalty,  making  them  equally 
present  in  their  succession.  And  so  far  from  this  agent  being  redu- 
cible to,  or  derivable  from,  a  succession  of  feelings,  it  is  the  condi- 
tion of  there  being  such  a  succession ;  the  condition  of  the  existence 
of  that  relation  between  feelings,  as  also  of  those  other  relations 
which  are  not  indeed  relations  between  feelings,  but  which,  if  they 
are  matter  of  experience,  must  have  their  being  in  consciousness. 
If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  connected  experience  of  related  objects, 
there  must  be  operative  in  consciousness  a  unifying  principle,  which 
not  only  presents  related  objects  to  itself,  but  at  once  renders  them 
objects  and  unites  them  in  relation  to  each  other  by  this  act  of  pres- 
entation ;  and  which  is  single  throughout  the  experience." 

According  to  this  passage,  the  knowing  or  distinguishing  agent 
is  conscious  and  self-conscious,  is  in  consciousness,  makes  a  con- 
sciousness possible  by  uniting  different  elements,  and  is  single 
throughout  the  experience.  We  find  elsewhere  that  this  principle 
is  not  in  consciousness  but  is  consciousness,  and  that  everything 
that  exists  is  in  it ;  that  it  is  intelligence ;  that  it  is  a  subject  or 
agent  which  desires  in  all  the  desires  of  a  man  and  thinks  in  all 
his  thoughts.  Notwithstanding  that  it  is  all  this,  it  has,  neverthe- 
less, no  existence  except  in  the  activity  which  constitutes  related 
phenomena ;  and  it  is,  in  the  words  of  the  author,2  "  neither  in  time 
nor  space,  immaterial  and  immovable,  eternally  one  with  itself." 

The  mere  statement  of  the  attributes  of  Mr.  Green's  spiritual 
principle  would  seem  to  be  sufficient  to  condemn  it.  A  faith 
robust  enough  to  remove  mountains  might  well  shy  at  the  task 
of  believing  that  the  single  subject  or  agent  which  desires  in  all 
the  desires  of  a  man  and  thinks  in  all  his  thoughts,  which  is  con- 
1 "  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,"  §  32.  2  Ibid.,  §  54. 


The  Self  or  Knower  87 

scious  and  self-conscious,  is  still  only  an  activity  without  existence 
except  as  it  constitutes  the  objects  of  experience,  and  which, 
though  it  does  not  exist  in  time,  is  equally  present  to  all  stages  of 
a  change  in  conscious  experience.  This  means  that  the  activity 
which  constituted  my  thought  of  yesterday  did  not  exist  yesterday, 
when  my  thought  did  ;  and  the  activity  which  constitutes  my 
thought  of  to-day  does  not  exist  to-day,  while  my  thought  does. 
Both  activities  are  one,  for  the  activity  which  constitutes  objects 
is  "eternally  one  with  itself."  What  can  this  mean?  If  the 
phrase  is  to  be  significant  at  all,  must  it  not  mean  that  the  activity 
in  question  is  "  always  "  the  same  activity  ?  and  does  not  "  always  " 
mean  "at  all  times"?  And  what  is  an  "immovable"  activity? 
Moreover,  is  it  fair  to  a  genuine  activity,  however  abnormal,  to 
call  it  a  principle,  or  subject,  or  agent? 

Mr.  Green's  utterances  are  not,  in  one  sense  of  the  word,  incom- 
prehensible. His  doctrine  is  not  fundamentally  new.  He  has 
taken  the  Kantian  unity  of  apperception,  made  of  it  an  hyposta- 
tized  activity,  tried  to  keep  it  free  of  space  and  time  relations,  and 
used  it  as  an  explanation  of  the  unity  of  experience,  or,  as  I  should 
prefer  to  say,  of  consciousness.  He  has  given  us  the  same  incon- 
sistent tota  in  toto  soul  that  we  find  in  Plotinus  and  Augustine. 
He  is,  to  be  sure,  a  post-Kantian,  and  he  has  included  this  thing 
in  "  experience,"  but  it  is  no  whit  more  thinkable  than  it  was 
before. 

With  all  this,  Mr.  Green  has  explained  nothing.  Even  if  we 
suppose  it  possible  for  an  activity  to  be  all  that  he  asks  it  to  be, 
even  to  be  timelessly  present  at  all  times,  how  are  we  to  conceive 
of  such  a  thing  as  uniting  the  elements  of  any  possible  experience  ? 
Shall  we  merely  assume  that  it  has  a  vague  and  inscrutable 
uniting  virtue,  akin  to  the  discredited  dormitive  virtue  of  opium  ? 
Mr.  Green  does  not  even  try  to  show  how  this  activity  obtains  its 
result.  He  does  not  seek  light  upon  this  point  by  a  direct  reference 
to  experience,  for  he  does  not  obtain  his  activity  by  direct  intro- 
spection ;  he  obtains  it  as  the  result  of  a  labored  process  which 
strives  to  demonstrate  that  it  must  be  assumed  or  experience  will 
be  seen  to  be  impossible. 

The  rational  self  as  treated  by  Kant  and  Green  appears  far  re- 
moved from  the  crude  bodily  self  which  is  to  the  child  the  knower 
and  doer,  and  also  from  the  material  or  semi-material  self  that  takes 
its  place  at  the  dawn  of  philosophic  thought ;  but  it  is  not  difficult 


88  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

to  see  that  it  appears  upon  the  stage  as  a  successor  to  these,  and 
undertakes  to  play  the  same  r61e.  As  has  been  pointed  out,  Kant 
never  wholly  abandoned  the  noumenal  self  which  his  doctrine  con- 
demned. It  lurked  in  the  background  of  his  thought,  and  percep- 
tibly colored  it.  In  calling  the  uniting  activity  which  he  found 
in  consciousness  the  rational  self,  he  connected  it  with  the  notions 
which  he  had  inherited  from  the  past.  He  stands  in  a  certain 
line  of  development,  and  must  be  regarded  rather  as  modifying  old 
notions  than  as  creating  something  distinctly  new.  The  same 
may  be  said  for  Mr.  Green.  He  quite  discards  the  noumenal  self, 
it  is  true,  but  then  he  turns  the  uniting  activity  into  something  as 
incomprehensible,  and  forces  it  to  perform  the  same  functions.  It 
is  a  subject  or  agent  which  presents  objects  to  itself,  is  conscious, 
and  distinguishes  itself  from  the  feelings  it  unites.  It  is  somehow 
"present"  to  the  things  it  knows. 

We  have  seen  that,  with  this  development,  the  self  and  its 
method  of  knowing  appear  to  become  more  and  more  unintelli- 
gible. How  the  self  as  noumenon  or  as  super-temporal  activity 
can  know  anything  or  do  anything,  no  one  can  pretend  to  under- 
stand. In  the  successive  transmutations  through  which  it  has 
passed  almost  all  reference  to  the  primary  experience  out  of  which 
the  notion  of  a  self  as  knower  and  doer  took  its  rise  has  been  lost. 
Were  such  reference  completely  lost,  it  would  go  hard  with  the 
hypostatized  abstractions  of  the  noumenalist  and  the  neo-Kantian. 
As  it  is,  they  hold  their  own  and  appear  not  wholly  without  plausi- 
bility, because  men  really  do  find  in  their  experience  something 
which  seems  to  speak  for  them  in  a  certain  vague  and  inarticulate 
way.  They  can  form  no  conception  of  the  manner  in  which  a 
noumenon  or  a  neo-Kantian  self-activity  can  account  for  their 
experiences,  but  they  prefer  even  these  to  nothing  at  all ;  for  must 
there  not  be  a  knower  ?  do  they  not  really  know  ? 

Their  position  is  one  quite  easy  to  understand.  It  is  not  exclu- 
sively to  the  childhood  of  the  individual  or  of  the  race,  that  we 
need  go  to  find  the  body  an  important  element  in  the  self-idea. 
The  developed  man  has  much  the  same  experience  as  the  child, 
and  instinctively  interprets  it  in  the  same  way,  although  reflection 
has  furnished  him  with  the  means  of  correcting  this  instinctive 
interpretation.  When,  therefore,  lie  speaks  of  perceiving  himself 
among  other  objects,  he  has  a  more  or  a  less  immediate  reference 
to  an  experience  which  he  and  others  constantly  have ;  and  uses 


The  Self  or  Knower  89 

a  certain  expression  to  call  attention  to  that  experience.  His 
thought  may  be  highly  nebulous  and  his  attempts  to  describe  it 
incoherent.  Still,  he  means  something,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
psychologist  to  show  him  what  he  means.  Our  noumenalist,  or 
our  neo-Kautian,  thus  takes  his  stand  upon  an  experience,  though 
he  misinterprets  it.  He  draws  from  experience  the  impulse  to 
carry  over  into  a  region  in  which  it  has  no  right  to  exist,  the 
notion  of  a  bodily  self.  He  refines  this  notion,  he  purifies  it  of 
all  that  is  earthly  and  concrete,  he  starves  it  to  a  shadow  of  its 
former  self,  and  yet  he  expects  of  it  its  former  tale  of  bricks  — 
knowing  and  doing. 

It  is  worth  while  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  original  expe- 
rience to  which  we  have  brought  back  all  forms  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  knower,  contains  nothing  which  will  justify  such  develop- 
ments as  those  which  we  have  been  discussing.  The  conscious- 
ness of  self  is  a  relatively  permanent  factor  of  our  experience ; 
and  that  important  constituent  in  it,  the  consciousness  of  the  body, 
is  perceived  to  be  a  condition  of  the  occurrences  in  consciousness 
of  other  experiences.  Should  it  be  objected  that,  not  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  body,  but  the  body  itself  is  the  condition  of  the 
occurrence  in  consciousness  of  other  experiences,  I  may  answer, 
that  such  an  absolute  separation  of  the  body  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  body,  as  one  makes  when  occupying  the  psychological 
standpoint  has,  in  Chapter  II,  been  shown  to  be  unjustifiable. 
Were  the  body  thus  cut  off  from  consciousness,  no  man  could  rec- 
ognize the  body  as  a  condition  of  conscious  experiences,  or  as 
related  to  them  in  any  way.  The  distinction  commonly  recog- 
nized between  the  body  itself  and  this  or  that  man's  consciousness 
of  it,  cannot  be  made  clear  without  a  detailed  examination  into 
what  is  meant  by  an  external  world  and  by  minds  related  to  it. 
For  the  present,  I  shall  content  myself  with  asserting  that  the 
distinction,  when  properly  understood,  is  seen  to  be  a  distinction 
within  consciousness.  I  shall  say,  in  accordance  with  this  doc- 
trine, and  without  more  narrowly  defining  the  significance  of  the 
statement  at  this  time,  that  the  body  —  a  something  of  which  we 
are  conscious  —  is  perceived  to  be  a  condition  of  our  having  other 
experiences.  By  this  I  mean  that  we  perceive  that  when  we 
close  our  eyes,  we  cease  to  see  the  colors  of  surrounding  objects, 
and  when  we  reopen  them,  we  again  have  such  experiences  ;  that 
\vhen  we  raise  our  hand  from  the  table  before  us,  we  cease  to  feel 


90  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

it,  and  when  we  lower  it  again,  we  feel  the  table  once  more. 
These  and  many  others  of  a  similar  nature  are  experienced  facts, 
and  it  is  natural  that  we  should  be  influenced  by  them  to  connect 
the  thought  of  the  body  with  the  thought  of  other  experiences 
of  all  sorts. 

But  the  fact  that  one  group  of  experiences  is  observed  to  be 
a  condition  of  the  appearance  in  consciousness  of  various  others, 
should  not  be  made  more  mysterious  than  it  is.  The  group  of 
experiences  we  call  the  body  does  not  "  hold  together  "  our  expe- 
riences as  a  whole,  as  the  knower  has  been  assumed  to  hold  to- 
gether all  the  things  that  it  knows.  It  constitutes,  to  be  sure,  a 
central  point  in  our  experience  ;  other  things  come  to  be  grouped 
around  it,  and  related  to  it.  But  all  this  gives  us  no  such  new 
and  occult  relation  as  has  been  imagined  between  knower  and 
known.  The  body  remains  a  complex  in  our  experience,  and  we 
have  before  us  the  perfectly  intelligible  task  of  marking  the  pre- 
cise nature  of  its  relations  to  other  complexes  or  to  single  ele- 
ments, much  as  we  mark  the  relation  of  any  element  to  any  other. 
We  have  no  good  excuse  for  speaking  inconsistently  or  growing 
incoherent. 

Again :  the  body  is  made  up  of  parts,  and  the  parts  of  things 
may  intelligibly  stand  in  relations  to  each  other,  as  well  as  may 
whole  objects.  A  hand  can  touch  its  fellow;  the  eyes  can,  as  we 
say,  see  the  hands  and  the  feet.  Thus  the  body  may,  in  a  loose 
sense  of  the  words,  be  said  to  know  itself,  to  be  the  condition  of 
its  own  appearance  in  consciousness.  The  expression  is  inaccu- 
rate and  rather  misleading,  but  it  must  not  be  set  aside  as  wholly 
unmeaning ;  it  is  based  on  experiences  which  can  be  described  in 
detail. 

But  when  we  get  away  from  the  notion  of  the  bodily  self,  put 
in  place  of  that  a  noumenon  or  a  super-temporal  activity,  declare 
it  to  be  an  absolute  unit,  and  then  maintain  that  it  knows  itself,  we 
fall  into  mere  incoherence.  There  is  nothing  whatever  in  our 
experience  which  can  serve  to  make  intelligible  to  us  the  signifi- 
cance of  such  a  statement.  The  man  who  maintains  that  one 
thing  knows  another,  may  admit  that  he  does  not  know  clearly 
what  this  relation  of  knowing  is,  but  may  hold  that  it  is  a  relation 
of  some  sort  between  two  things.  Certainly  the  relations  between 
things  may  be  of  many  sorts.  But  lie  who  is  capable  of  positing 
a  relation  of  any  kind  between  a  thing  and  itself,  is  capable  of 


The  Self  or  Knower  91 

maintaining  seriously  that  one  man  may  look  alike  or  may  walk 
in  single  file. 

It  is  merely  playing  with  words  to  attempt  to  split  any  one  thing 
into  the  thing  and  itself,  distinguishing  the  two  as  knower  and 
known,  and  at  the  same  time  asserting  that  knower  and  known  are 
not  really  two  but  only  one.  The  subject-object  of  the  old  psychol- 
ogy, the  self  as  self-knower,  is  a  monstrosity.  It  needs  but  a  moment 
of  unprejudiced  reflection,  it  seems  to  me,  to  see  that  what  is  said 
about  it  is  absurd  and  unmeaning.  The  only  question  of  real 
interest  is :  How  have  men  come  to  speak  in  this  way  ?  The 
answer  has  been  given  above,  and  it  seems  a  sufficiently  plausible 
one.  A  notion  derived  from  experience  of  the  body  is  carried 
over  into  a  realm  in  which  it  wholly  loses  significance,  and  it  is 
held  on  to  notwithstanding  this  fact. 

In  the  preceding  pages  three  different  selves  have  been  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other  and  subjected  to  criticism  ;  they  are 
the  self  as  noumenon,  the  self  as  a  group  of  phenomena  in  con- 
sciousness, and  the  self  as  the  neo-Kantian  self-activity,  whatever 
that  may  mean.  Were  we  discussing  any  other  subject,  it  would 
seem  a  work  of  supererogation  to  endeavor  to  show  that  these 
should  not  be  confounded  with  each  other.  But  here  such  confu- 
sion has  reigned  that  it  cannot  be  out  of  place  to  emphasize  the 
truth  that  a  noumenon  —  by  definition  a  something  which  cannot 
by  any  possibility  enter  consciousness  —  cannot  be  strictly  identi- 
cal with  a  group  of  elements  in  consciousness ;  and  that  neither 
of  these  can  be  strictly  identical  with  a  unitary  activity  which  is 
supposed  to  hold  together  the  divers  elements  of  which  a  conscious- 
ness is  composed. 

When  a  man  talks  about  the  self,  therefore,  he  should  know 
clearly  to  which  of  the  three  he  refers.  They  are  evidently  not  one, 
and  they  should  not  be  treated  as  one.  They  are  not  only  numeri- 
cally distinct,  but  they  are  not  even  conceived  to  be  similar ;  and 
to  the  question  why  they  should  be  given  the  same  name  and  thus 
put  into  the  one  class,  no  answer  save  an  historical  one  seems  to  be 
forthcoming.  Those  who  hold  to  the  existence  of  all  three  or  of 
any  two  of  these  are  apt  to  identify  them  loosely  with  each  other, 
and  to  pass  in  their  reasonings  from  the  one  to  the  other  without 
clearly  marking  the  transition.  Such  a  procedure  evidently  is  born 
of  and  gives  birth  to  confusion  of  thought. 

The  preceding  pages  have,  I  hope,  made  it  clear  that  the  nou- 


92  The  Content  of  Consciousness 

menal  self  must  be  thrown  aside  as  a  mere  figment  of  the  imagina- 
tion, as  an  entity  the  real  existence  of  which  cannot  be  proved 
by  any  legitimate  evidence  based  on  experience,  and  one  which 
furnishes  no  real  explanation  of  anything.  Its  loss  can  cause  no 
annoyance  to  the  man  who  realizes  what  it  is,  and  distinguishes 
between  the  three  selves  we  have  been  discussing. 

It  can  surely  matter  nothing  to  me  if  an  "  I  "  of  which  I  have,  by 
hypothesis,  never  been  conscious  and  can  never  be  conscious  ;  an 
"  I "  which  is  not  the  "  I "  that  I  perceive  myself  to  be  and  that  I 
distinguish  from  other  selves  ;  an  "  I  "  so  different  from  the  "  I  "  of 
which  I  am  conscious  that  its  bearing  the  same  name  can  only  be 
explained  as  due  to  a  misapprehension  ;  an  "I  "  which  accounts  for 
nothing  in  my  conscious  experience  and,  indeed,  turns  out  upon 
examination  to  be  nothing  but  a  name  for  an  unknown  —  it  can 
surely  matter  nothing  to  me  if  such  an  "  I  "  be  divested  of  the  mis- 
conceptions which  appear  to  give  to  it  a  semblance  of  substantiality 
and  be  made  to  appear  the  unsubstantial  cipher  that  it  is.  He  who 
clearly  realizes  just  what  is  meant  by  the  noumenal  self,  who  sees 
how  completely  it  stands  outside  the  circle  of  his  actual  and  possi- 
ble experiences,  and  how  totally  without  significance  it  must  be  for 
them,  can  have  no  sense  of  loss  in  the  discovery  that  it  must  be  dis- 
carded. 

But  it  is  not  easy  to  strip  off  inherited  misconceptions,  and  such 
reflections  as  are  contained  in  the  preceding  pages  are  apt  to  bring 
to  many  a  sense  that  they  are  being  defrauded  of  something,  a 
feeling  that  the  self  that  is  left  them  is  little  better  than  a  hollow 
shell,  without  substance  and  without  true  reality.  The  feeling  is  a 
vague  one,  and  cannot  justify  itself  in  the  face  of  analysis,  but  it  is 
rather  persistent.  Its  disappearance  can  only  be  brought  about  by 
substituting  a  habit  for  a  habit  —  the  habit  of  clear  thinking,  for 
the  habit  of  thinking  loosely  and  vaguely. 

As  to  the  shadowy  successor  of  the  old  noumenal  self,  namely, 
the  self  as  timeless  self-activity,  that  must  evidently  be  rejected 
also.  And  since  it  is  the  only  self  brought  forward  as  a  something 
in  consciousness  or  in  experience  to  be  set  over  against  all  else  that 
is  in  consciousness,  and  as  being  different  in  nature  from  all  the  ele- 
ments indicated  in  the  preceding  chapter,  its  rejection  leaves  us 
only  what  lias  been  called  the  empirical  self  as  a  proper  subject  of 
investigation  for  the  psychologist  and  the  metaphysician. 

That  the  investigation  of  the  nature  and  constitutive  elements  of 


93 

the  empirical  self  is  no  easy  task  has  already  been  made  clear,  but 
it  is  equally  clear  that  the  task  is  not  in  its  nature  a  hopeless  one. 
It  does  not  differ  in  kind  from  the  task  which  confronts  us  every 
time  that  we  undertake  to  obtain  an  analytic  knowledge  of  any 
complex  in  consciousness.  This  is  true  no  matter  what  aspect  of 
the  empirical  self  we  are  concerned  with.  When  we  say,  "  I  know," 
"  I  think,"  "  I  feel,"  these  expressions  indicate  the  presence  of  cer- 
tain complex  states  of  consciousness.  When  we  say,  "  I  know 
myself  as  knowing,"  "  I  think  about  myself,"  etc.,  we  indicate  the 
presence  of  conscious  states  in  some  respects  different  from  those 
above  mentioned.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  analyst  to  try  to  substitute 
for  the  vagueness  which  usually  characterizes  the  recognition  of 
these  states  of  consciousness  and  their  differences  from  each  other 
some  degree  of  clearness  and  defmiteness. 

Much  has  been  said,  and  much  is  still  said,  about  the  unity  of 
consciousness.  Undoubtedly,  the  thought  of  one  man  as  knowing 
two  things  and  the  thought  of  two  men  as  each  knowing  one  thing 
are  not  to  be  confounded.  When  we  speak  of  "  a  mind,"  we  mean 
something,  and  it  is  perfectly  just  to  seek  to  know  clearly  what  we 
mean.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  find  in  consciousness  a  unity  and  to 
endeavor  to  determine  with  defmiteness  what  is  meant  by  the  unity 
of  consciousness  ;  and  it  is  another  thing  to  attempt  to  explain  how 
the  unity  of  consciousness  is  brought  about,  by  the  assumption  of 
hypothetical  entities  not  to  be  found  in  consciousness,  or  by  ascrib- 
ing inconceivable  virtues  to  hypostatized  spiritual  activities.  Hence 
the  rejection  of  the  two  selves  which  we  have  weighed  and  found 
wanting,  the  noumenon  and  its  post-Kantian  successor,  need  not  in 
the  least  compel  us  to  deny  to  consciousness  a  certain  unity.  It  is 
merely  the  rejection  of  two  unsatisfactory  attempts  to  explain  how 
that  unity  has  been  brought  about  —  attempts  which  not  only  fail 
in  the  aim  which  they  have  set  before  them,  but  which  leave  un- 
touched the  much  more  important  problem  of  what  manner  of  thing 
the  unity  of  consciousness  actually  is.  To  this  problem  nothing 
but  a  careful  analysis  of  our  experience  can  furnish  a  satisfactory 
answer.1 

i  See  Chapter  XXIX. 


PAET   II 
THE   EXTERNAL  WORLD 

CHAPTER   VI 
WHAT  WE  MEAN  BY  THE  EXTERNAL  WORLD 

THE  word  "  consciousness,"  taken  in  the  broad  sense,  embraces 
every  element  of  our  experience  and  all  combinations  of  such 
elements.  That  it  is  impossible  to  pass,  in  any  intelligible  sense 
of  that  word,  beyond  this  realm,  we  have  already  seen.1  We  can- 
not, of  course,  know  directly  what  is  outside  of  our  experience, 
and  an  examination  of  representative  or  symbolic  knowledge 
reveals.2  that  it  is  impossible,  by  putting  together  consciousness- 
elements,  to  construct  something  truly  representative  of  an 
external  world  supposed  to  be  of  a  quite  different  nature  —  of  a 
world  which  in  no  sense  belongs  to  our  experience  or  forms  a  part 
of  it,  but  lies  over  against  experience  as  a  whole,  and  is  contrasted 
with  it. 

But  if  we  take  the  word  "  consciousness  "  in  a  narrower  sense,  if 
we  think  of  a  consciousness  as  the  particular  group  of  experiences 
forming  an  individual  mind,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from 
distinguishing  between  consciousness  and  an  external  material 
world  standing  over  against  it,  nor  is  there  anything  to  prevent 
us  from  distinguishing  between  one  consciousness  and  another. 
We  certainly  mean  something  when  we  speak  of  a  world  of 
matter  and  contrast  it  with  the  world  of  minds ;  and  we  are  not 
talking  mere  nonsense  when  we  say  that  we  think  of  this  man  or 
that  as  thinking  this  or  that. 

These  modes  of  expression  denote  real  distinctions  within  our 
experience ;  distinctions  that  may  be,  it  is  true,  imperfectly  appre- 
hended, as  much  that  belongs  to  our  experience  may  be  imper- 
fectly apprehended,  and  may  even  be  seriously  misinterpreted. 

1  Chapter  II.  2  Chapter  III. 

95 


96  The  External  World 

Such  a  misunderstanding  has  arisen  when  one  accepts  as  final  the 
psychological  doctrine  of  the  isolation  of  the  mind,  of  a  knowledge 
of  things  external  solely  through  representative  images.  That 
this  doctrine  must  have  its  origin  in  a  misapprehension  becomes 
quite  clear  when  we  develop  its  consequences.  But  if  we  avoid 
such  logical  shipwreck  by  holding  fast  to  the  thought  that  those 
distinctions  which  we  are  discussing  are  distinctions  within  our 
experience,  that  we  are  in  some  true  sense  of  the  word  conscious  of 
them,  we  may  regard  it  as  a  difficult,  but  we  need  not  regard  it  as 
a  hopeless,  task  to  give  a  reasonably  clear  and  satisfactory  account 
of  them. 

It  is  merely  a  question  of  drawing  a  vague  and  indefinite  state 
of  consciousness  into  the  light  of  definite  and  analytic  knowledge. 
We  all  know  vaguely  —  it  may  be  very  vaguely,  indeed  —  what  we 
mean  by  an  external  material  world ;  and  we  all  know  dimly  what 
we  mean  when  we  speak  of  our  own  or  of  another  mind.  These 
expressions  are  not  mere  noise  to  us ;  the  conceptions  for  which 
they  stand  we  can  use,  and  we  do  use,  more  or  less  intelligently. 

The  metaphysician  should  strive  to  bring  us  to  a  better  under- 
standing of  what  we  actually  have  in  mind  when  we  use  them. 
It  ought  to  go  without  saying  that  we  have  a  right  to  expect  from 
him,  when  he  undertakes  to  prove  anything,  the  same  sober  con- 
duct that  we  expect  from  other  men  who  undertake  to  prove 
things.  He  must  observe  the  ordinary  logical  rules ;  he  must  not 
speak  unintelligibly,  and  he  must  not  contradict  himself.  He  must 
begin  with  the  somewhat  dim  and  unsatisfactory  knowledge  which 
characterizes  unreflective  thought,  and  he  must  really  accept  the 
fact  that  it  is  dim  and  unsatisfactory.  He  must  not  assume  at  the 
outset  that  he  is  already  provided  with  the  information  which  he 
sets  out  to  seek,  and  is  already  in  possession  of  an  array  of  "intui- 
tions," "necessary  truths,"  "first  and  fundamental  truths,"  and 
what  not,  that  it  is  only  necessary  for  him  to  describe  at  leisure. 
He  who  adopts  this  latter  method  of  procedure  does  not  really 
describe  the  ultimates  which  he  assumes ;  he  merely  enumerates 
them.  lie  does  not  analyze,  for  he  assumes  that  he  is  dealing  with 
unanalyzables.  He  remains  upon  the  plane  of  the  common  under- 
standing, or,  at  most,  only  skirmishes  a  very  little  beyond  it.  His 
writings  are  apt  to  be  peculiarly  satisfactory  to  the  plain  man,  for 
the  good  reason  that  the  latter,  in  following  him,  is  not  compelled 
to  pass  beyond  his  usual  modes  of  thought.  He  remains  the  man 


Wliat  we  Mean  by  the  External  World  97 

he  was,  even  when  he  becomes  a  philosopher  —  which  seems  a  gain 
counterbalanced  by  no  corresponding  loss. 

To  those  who  feel  themselves  attracted  to  this  common-sense 
philosophy,  which  recognizes  the  distinctions  with  which  the 
metaphysician  should  occupy  himself  —  such  distinctions  as  those 
between  the  mind  and  the  external  world,  one  consciousness  and 
another,  appearance  and  reality  —  but  which  contents  itself  with 
recognizing  and  emphasizing  these  distinctions,  and  refuses  to 
analyze  the  conceptions  which  it  employs  into  their  component 
elements ;  to  those  who  feel  themselves  attracted  to  this  phi- 
losophy, I  earnestly  recommend  reflection  upon  the  lesson  to  be 
drawn  from  the  experience  of  that  remarkable  man  Descartes. 

We  may  see  in  Descartes  a  shining  illustration  of  the  fatal 
ease  with  which  a  critical  mind,  not  a  weak  one,  may  gulp  down 
into  itself,  and  assimilate,  without  inconvenience,  doctrines  which 
appear  to  a  later  age  questionable  or  even  preposterous ;  and  may 
be  led  to  do  this  for  the  one  reason  that  it  is  accustomed  to  these 
doctrines,  that  these  ways  of  conceiving  things  fit  it  like  an  old 
glove,  and  it  can  see  in  them  nothing  to  criticise.  Descartes 
began  with  the  resolve  to  repudiate  all  his  previous  opinions,  and 
to  take  back  only  such  as  could  really  justify  themselves  before 
the  impartial  tribunal  of  his  reason.  But  when  he  had  cleared  the 
room  of  all  occupants,  and  opened  the  door  for  the  admission  of 
the  elect,  there  entered  unchallenged  (ex  uno  disce  omnes)  a  soul 
whose  ticket  primarily  entitled  it  to  a  seat  in  the  pineal  gland,  but 
which,  not  content  with  so  definitely  limited  a  location,  insisted 
upon  its  right  —  one  inherited  from  Scholasticism — to  occupy 
simultaneously  all  the  chairs  in  the  room.  This  right  poor 
Descartes  admitted  at  once  ;  he  was  accustomed  to  having  souls 
act  in  that  way,  and  he  expected  of  them  nothing  better. 

From  this  and  from  a  multitude  of  other  instances  which  will 
suggest  themselves  to  the  student  of  the  history  of  philosophy,  it 
is  easy  to  draw  the  inference  that  the  fact  that  certain  ways  of 
looking  at  things  strike  us  at  once  as  natural  and  reasonable,  does 
not  necessarily  prove  that  these  are  the  best  ways,  and  those  in 
which  the  metaphysician  should  rest.  He  who  would  be  a  meta- 
physician should  learn  to  distrust  his  "intuitions";  for  a  multi- 
tude of  things  that  have  passed  by  this  name  have  been  nothing 
more  than  somewhat  obscure  conceptions,  familiar  and  hence 
acceptable  to  the  mind,  inherited  from  the  past,  furnishing 


98  The  External  World 

important  material  for  investigation,  it  is  true,  but  demanding 
analysis  and,  perhaps,  reconstruction. 

One  does  not  become  a  metaphysician  by  simply  falling  back, 
for  example,  upon  our  "  intuitive  "  (which  here  means  "  unana- 
ly tic  "  )  knowledge  that  there  is  an  external  world,  and  that  we  must 
distinguish  between  matter  and  mind.  One  may  say  this  over  and 
over  again  at  great  length,  and  yet  not  add  a  whit  to  the  clearness 
of  our  comprehension  of  the  nature  of  these  things.  And  if  the 
doctrine  of  the  external  world,  implicit  in  the  thought  of  the  plain 
man,  and  rendered  somewhat  more  explicit  by  the  psychologist, 
contains  an  inconsistency  and  needs  reconstruction,  any  metaphysi- 
cal theory  which  simply  rests  in  it  and  defends  it,  refusing  to  pass 
beyond  it  to  something,  in  a  sense,  more  unnatural,  certainly  more 
unaccustomed,  must  be  vitiated  by  the  same  fault. 

Thus  the  metaphysician  should  be  willing  to  adjust  himself  to 
new  and  unaccustomed  ways  of  looking  at  things,  provided  that 
his  reasonings,  in  which  repeated  examination  can  discover  no 
unsoundness,  seem  to  conduct  him  inevitably  to  such  conclusions. 
If  he  has  good  reason  to  believe  that  he  has  reasoned  well,  that  he 
has  simply  analyzed  conceptions  which  all  use  but  few  succeed  in 
analyzing,  he  may  console  himself  with  the  reflection  that  those 
who  oppose  him  do  not  really  disagree  with  him,  but  only  think 
that  they  do  so  ;  that  they  misapprehend  both  their  own  experience 
and  his  analysis  of  it;  and  that  they  carry  within  themselves  the 
refutation  of  their  own  words.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  will  give 
a  very  modest  expression  to  this  conviction,  which  is  likely  to  be 
found  highly  exasperating  to  the  opposite  party.  It  is  not  every 
one  that  wishes  to  meet  a  sympathy  so  broad  that  it  is  impossible 
to  go  around  it. 

The  astute  reader  will  have  seen  in  the  preceding  pages  an 
apology  for  the  doctrine  which  I  am  about  to  set  forth.  It  is  a 
view  of  the  nature  of  the  external  world  which,  I  am  glad  to  think, 
is  not  fundamentally  new,  even  though  it  differs  in  some  details 
from  other  doctrines  with  which  the  reader  is  familiar.  Possibly 
some  will  be  tempted  to  call  it,  at  first  glance,  idealistic ;  but  this 
name,  with  the  associations  that  cling  to  it,  can  only  lead  to  a  mis- 
apprehension of  its  true  nature,  and  I  must  beg  that  the  doctrine 
be  allowed  to  remain  nameless,  at  least  until  this  volume  has  been 
read  through  to  the  end. 

In  undertaking  an  investigation  of  the  nature  of  the  external 


What  we  Mean  by  the  External  World  99 

material  world  it  is  perhaps  convenient  to  begin  with  a  concrete  and 
unambiguous  experience.  Here  is  the  table  before  me,  an  object 
which  I  cannot  but  believe  to  exist  as  a  part  of  the  system  of 
material  things.  I  see  it ;  I  can  touch  it ;  it  is  hard ;  it  is  ex- 
tended ;  it  is  colored.  It  appears  to  be  as  real  as  it  is  possible  for 
anything  to  be. 

It  is,  be  it  remembered,  this  table  before  me,  the  one  in  my 
experience,  about  which  I  am  in  the  habit  of  making  these  state- 
ments. When  I  speak  thus,  I  am  not  talking  about  a  little  copy 
of  such  a  table  in,  or  somehow  connected  with,  my  brain  —  a 
representative,  which  is  unlike  the  real  table,  but  which  in  some 
inconceivable  way  stands  for  it.  As  we  have  seen,1  both  the  plain 
man  and  the  psychologist  assume  the  existence  of  such  a  represen- 
tative and  confine  our  knowledge  to  it;  but  neither  takes  his 
assumption  quite  seriously,  for  he  also  assumes  that  we  have  direct 
experience  of  the  real  table,  and  his  system  of  reasonings,  his  whole 
theory  of  originals  and  representatives,  and  of  the  relations  between 
them,  rests  upon  this  assumption. 

The  real  external  table  is,  then,  a  something  in  our  experience. 
It  is  given  in  consciousness.  When  we  have  said  this,  we  have,  to 
be  sure,  ruled  out  a  possible  source  of  error,  but  we  have  not  said 
very  much,  for  there  are  various  ways  in  which  things  may  be 
given  in  consciousness ;  and  many  sources  of  error  are  open  to  the 
man  who  fails  to  distinguish  between  them.  If  we  simply  maintain 
that  the  table  of  which  we  are  speaking  is,  since  it  exists  in  con- 
sciousness, a  state  of  consciousness  or  part  of  such  a  state,  and  rest 
content  with  that  statement,  we  seem  to  obliterate  completely  the 
useful  distinction  between  things  and  our  ideas  of  things,  a  dis- 
tinction which,  even  though  it  may  remain  to  most  of  us  a  suffi- 
ciently vague  one,  nevertheless  appears  to  justify  itself  by  the 
purposes  it  serves. 

That  the  plain  man  and  the  psychologist  are  not  wholly  wrong 
in  insisting  upon  this  distinction  it  is  not  difficult  to  show.  They 
may  point  out  that  the  actual  experience  of  which  one  is  conscious, 
the  sensation  of  color  which  we  have  when,  as  we  say,  we  look  at 
a  table,  may  be  made  to  disappear  at  once  by  the  very  simple  ex- 
pedient of  closing  the  eyes.  There,  at  one  moment,  is  the  table, 
vivid,  undeniable,  an  existent  sensation  or  mass  of  sensations 
directly  perceived ;  and,  presto !  it  is  gone,  snuff ed  out,  replaced 

1  Chapter  II. 


100  The  External  World 

by  darkness  and  a  memory  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  sensation 
itself.  Would  any  man  in  his  senses  declare  that  the  real  table 
ceased  to  exist  when  this  phantasm  dropped  into  nothingness  ? 
Between  perceiving  a  table  and  not  perceiving  a  table  there  is  cer- 
tainly a  difference,  but  is  it  reasonable  to  assume  that  the  fate  of 
real  things  is  bound  up  with  these  fluctuations  in  our  perception 
of  them?  And  yet,  if  the  table  we  are  conscious  of  is  the  real 
external  table,  if  we  are  dealing  here  with  one  thing  and  not  with 
two,  how  can  the  thing  go  on  existing  when  we  no  longer  perceive 
it  ?  Can  a  thing  exist  and  not  exist  at  the  same  time  ?  Must  not 
the  thing  and  the  percept  be  somehow  separated,  if  the  one  is  to 
be  taken  and  the  other  left? 

The  justice  of  the  distinction  between  our  perceptions  of  things 
and  the  things  themselves  becomes  clear  when  we  examine  with 
care  what  we  mean  by  the  expression  "  a  real  thing  " ;  and  at  the 
same  time  it  becomes  clear  that  we  are  not  forced  to  double  the 
number  of  things  perceived  and  banish  half  of  them,  the  real  half, 
to  a  world  unknown  and  unperceived,  a  world  beyond  and  outside 
of  our  experience  as  a  whole.  In  other  words,  it  becomes  clear 
that  the  psychologist  is  partly  right ;  that  he  has  recognized  dis- 
tinctions that  it  is  important  to  recognize,  but  that  he  has  not 
grasped  clearly  the  whole  significance  of  these  distinctions.  He 
has  distinguished  between  things  and  our  ideas  of  things ;  but  he 
has  left  incomplete  his  analysis  of  the  former  conception.  If  he 
will  complete  it,  he  will  find  that  he  may  hold  to  the  distinction 
without  on  that  account  being  forced  to  say  what  is  inconsistent, 
or  to  dogmatize  on  the  nature  of  entities  for  the  existence  of  which 
he  can  furnish  no  unequivocal  proof. 

We  may  begin  our  investigation  of  the  elements  which  enter 
into  our  conception  of  a  real  table  by  marking  the  following 
points :  — 

1.  The  real  table  is  evidently  more  to  us  than  this  one 
experience  of  color-sensations ;  a  very  little  reflection  is  sufficient 
to  establish  that.  It  is  quite  true  that  I  say,  "  I  see  the  real  table," 
and  refer  to  this  experience  of  colors  ;  but  when  I  examine  my 
thought  a  little  more  narrowly,  I  admit  at  once  that  this  one 
experience  does  not  constitute  for  me  the  table  of  which  I  am 
speaking.  It  would  be  a  monstrosity,  a  phantom  table,  no  table  at 
all,  that  could  be  summed  up  in  a  single  visual  experience.  It 
could  not  be  seen  from  a  nearer  or  a  farther  point,  from  this  angle 


What  we  Mean  by  the  External  World  101 

or  that,  under  a  good  light  or  in  semi-obscurity.  Moreover,  it 
could  not  be  touched,  and  recognized  as  hard,  smooth,  furnished 
with  sharp  corners  and  rounded  edges,  a  thing  to  knock  up  against, 
to  sit  upon,  to  give  forth  sounds  when  drummed  upon  with  the 
fingers.  All  these  elements  enter  into  our  conception  of  a  real 
table,  and  although  at  any  given  moment  some  one  experience  may 
be  more  prominently  in  mind  than  the  others,  these  others  cannot 
be  wholly  lacking,  or  we  are  not  thinking  of  a  table  at  all.  Thus 
tables,  as  they  enter  into  our  experience,  are  very  complex  things. 
Single  experiences  of  sight  or  of  touch  may  enter  into  these  com- 
plexes, and  help  to  make  them  what  they  are ;  but  they  cannot  be 
regarded  as  strictly  identical  with  the  wholes  of  which  they  are 
mere  elements. 

2.  It  should  be  observed,  furthermore,  that  when  I  say,  "I  see 
the  table,"  the  various  elements  which  constitute  the  conception 
are  not  all  present  in  consciousness  in  the  same  way.     One  experi- 
ence of  color  presents  itself  in  consciousness  with  a  certain  vivid- 
ness ;  it  is,  as  we  say,  in  the  sense.     But  all  the  other  experiences 
of  color  which  enter  into  the  conception  must  be  present,  not  in 
the  sense  but  in  imagination.     It  is  not  possible  for  me  to  see  all 
around  a  table  at  once,  or  to  view  it  from  different  distances  simul- 
taneously.    And  if  I  merely  look  at  the  table,  and  do  not  touch 
it,  all  those  experiences  of  touch  which  enter  into  the  conception, 
and  which  supplement  the  experiences  of  sight,  must  be  present,  in 
so  far  as  they  are  present,  as  imaginary  elements,  and  not  as  sensa- 
tions.    So  it  may  be  with  any  other  experiences  which  contribute 
their  quota  to  my  notion  of  a  real  table.     I  may  see  a  real  table 
before  me,  and  recognize  on  reflection  that  I  actually  see  very  little 
indeed,  and  that  vastly  the  greater  part  of  the  total  content  for 
which  the  word  stands  is  furnished  by  the  imagination,  not  found 
in  the  sense. 

3.  It  is  possible  to  go  even  a  step  farther  than  this.     We  all 
believe  in  the  existence  of  real  tables  at  which  we  do  not  happen 
to  be  looking  at  any  given  moment.     If  this  one  before   me  is 
carried  into  the  next  room,  I  do  not,  on  that  account,  cease  to 
believe  that  it  continues  to  exist.     It  is  still  for  me  a  real  table, 
but  a  real  table  for  the  time  being   unperceived.     When    I    am 
thinking  of  it,  every  element  in  my  thought  is  drawn  from  the 
region  of  imagination.     It  is,  then,  as  it  appears,  possible  for  a  real 
table  to  exist  without  being  perceived  at  all ;  it  is  merely  conceived, 


102  The  External  World 

thought  about,  constructed  in  the  imagination.  It  has  its  whole 
being  in  a  region  which  we  are  accustomed  to  contrast  with  the 
real  world  of  things,  and  to  which  we  deny  reality  of  the  same 
kind  as  that  which  we  attribute  to  these.  If  this  be  so,  how  can 
that  which  is  in  consciousness  be  the  real  thing  ?  Have  we 
not  come  back  to  something  very  like  the  standpoint  of  the 
psychologist? 

4.  The  answer  to  this  question  we  may  defer  for  a  few 
moments.  It  is  important  here  to  recognize  that  we  do  not  regard 
an  imaginary  table,  as  such,  as  a  real  one.  It  is  not  enough  to 
draw  upon  our  past  experience  of  tables,  to  put  together  such  and 
such  elements,  construct  for  ourselves  in  thought  a  table  of  a  given 
size  and  color  and  marked  by  certain  arbitrarily  chosen  char- 
acteristics, and  then  give  it  an  unperceived  existence  in  this  locality 
or  that. 

I  do  not  believe  the  table  in  the  next  room  to  exist  merely 
because  the  conception  of  it  is  in  my  mind.  It  is  not  the  part  of 
good  sense  to  embrace  this  belief  for  no  better  reason.  I  believe 
that  the  table  in  the  next  room  exists,  either  because  I  saw  it 
carried  in  there  out  of  this  room,  or  because  some  one  else  has 
seen  it  and  has  told  me  so;  or  because,  by  some  other  method  — 
perhaps  a  very  indirect  method  indeed  —  I  am  enabled  to  connect 
the  thought  of  the  table  with  experiences  of  the  class  to  which 
sensations  belong,  and  to  recognize  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  a 
representative  of  a  sensational  content  and,  under  appropriate 
circumstances,  may  even  be  replaced  by  such. 

My  ultimate  reference  is  always  to  sensation ;  to  sensations 
which  have  been  experienced,  or  to  sensations  which  may  be 
experienced.  I  may  lay  my  hand  on  the  table  before  me  and 
substitute  for  the  idea  of  hardness  the  corresponding  sensa- 
tion. If  I  am  asked  to  prove  that  there  is  a  table  in  the  next 
room,  I  may  either  sit  still  and  show  from  experiences  had  in 
the  past  that  this  particular  conception  must  be  placed  among 
those  which  are  legitimately  regarded  as  representative  of  sense 
presentations ;  or  I  may,  instead,  rise  and  open  the  door,  thus  sub- 
stituting a  perception,  an  actual  experience  of  color,  for  the  thought 
of  such.  This  reference  to  sense,  implicit  in  all  our  affirmations 
of  the  reality  of  things,  has  been  so  often  pointed  out,  that  it  may 
seem  scarcely  necessary  to  emphasize  it.  It  is  admitted  by  men  of 
widely  different  schools  of  thought. 


What  ive  Mean  ~by  the  External  World  103 

But  what,  after  all,  is  meant  by  a  reference  to  sensation  ?  How 
can  a  sensation  be  recognized  as  such  ? 

This  problem  has  been  touched  upon  in  an  earlier  chapter.1  It 
was  there  pointed  out  that  sensations,  the  class  of  experiences 
which  Hume  called  impressions,  have  as  a  class  a  degree  of  vivid- 
ness which  serves  to  mark  them  out  roughly  from  the  class  of 
experiences  called  ideas.  But  it  was  remarked,  at  the  same  time, 
that  this  difference  in  vividness  is  not  always  present  to  serve 
as  a  criterion,  and  that,  consequently,  some  other  mark  must  be 
sought,  if  we  are  to  feel  safe  in  relegating  this  experience  or  that 
to  the  one  class  or  to  the  other.  Ideas  may  in  certain  cases  be 
very  vivid  and  insistent;  sensations  may  be  extremely  dim  and 
shadowy.  A  man  seen  in  a  dim  light  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  less 
real  than  an  actor  in  a  dream,  though  the  latter  may  stand  out  very 
strikingly  on  the  background  of  his  unreal  surroundings. 

There  must,  then,  be  some  other  final  court  of  appeal  if  the 
claims  of  sensations  and  ideas  are  to  be  determined  with  anything 
like  an  approach  to  justice.  Such  a  court  the  psychologist  tries 
to  furnish  us  in  distinguishing  between  mental  experiences  which 
are  to  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  "  peripheral  stimulation,"  that 
is,  those  which  arise  when  the  outworks,  so  to  speak,  of  our  nervous 
system  are  thrown  into  a  state  of  activity ;  and  mental  experiences 
which  correspond  to  an  independent  activity  of  the  "  central " 
nervous  system,  those,  in  other  words,  which  represent  brain  action 
which  is  not  a  direct  response  to  a  message  conducted  along  a 
sensory  nerve. 

This  distinction  appears  at  first  glance  to  be  a  convenient  one. 
Perhaps  it  will  really  be  a  very  convenient  one  for  some  purposes, 
when  we  possess  a  more  accurate  knowledge  than  we  now  do  of 
what  takes  place  in  the  peripheral  nervous  system  and  in  the 
central.  But  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  man  who  offers 
us  this  distinction  as  the  criterion  for  deciding  what  experi- 
ences are  sensations  and  what  are  ideas  has  placed  himself  upon 
the  psychological  standpoint,  and  has  assumed  that,  in  a  certain 
field  at  least,  he  already  has  the  knowledge  to  which  his  criterion 
is  to  help  him.  How  does  he  know  that  the  body,  of  whose  central 
and  peripheral  nervous  systems  he  discourses,  is  not  an  imaginary 
thing,  a  persistent  hallucination?  How  can  he  prove  his  experi- 
ences of  the  body,  which  are  to  form  the  touchstone  for  testing 

1  Chapter  IV. 


104  The  External  World 

other  experiences,  to  be  of  the  class  called  sensational  ?  If  he 
simply  assumes  them  to  be  such  —  as  he  does  —  and  then  uses 
them  as  the  test  of  other  experiences,  is  he  not  guessing  at  half 
the  distance  to  the  sun,  and  then  multiplying  by  two,  to  discover 
how  far  away  the  sun  really  is  ? 

The  procedure  of  the  psychologist  is  not,  however,  as  bad  as  it 
looks  when  set  forth  in  this  way.  His  criterion  cannot  be  accepted 
as  final  by  the  metaphysician,  but  it  may  serve  a  useful  purpose 
nevertheless.  In  advancing  it,  the  psychologist  remains  upon  the 
plane  of  the  common  understanding,  and  assumes  that  certain 
things  may  be  safely  assumed,  even  if  they  are  not  completely 
understood.  We  have  seen  that  the  distinction  between  our  sensa- 
tions and  our  ideas  is  one  recognized  in  common  life,  and  that  it 
would  be  extremely  inconvenient  were  these  two  classes  of  experi- 
ence easily  and  frequently  confounded.1  There  is  the  broad  dis- 
tinction, just  mentioned,  of  a  superior  vividness,  which  characterizes 
our  sensations  as  a  class.  But  even  where  this  characteristic  is 
lacking,  and  where  a  mere  inspection  of  the  experience  itself  would 
leave  the  mind  in  doubt  as  to  its  proper  place,  it  is  possible  to  apply 
the  only  ultimate  criterion,  a  recognition  of  the  way  in  which  the 
experience  behaves,  of  the  place  among  our  other  experiences  which 
it  takes  and  maintains,  and  thus  to  decide  upon  the  class  to  which 
it  rightly  belongs. 

This  criterion  is  perfectly  well  recognized  in  common  life,  and 
it  is  the  one  applied  in  the  more  exact  investigations  which  obtain 
in  the  sciences.  It  may  be  very  well  applied  without  a  clear 
apprehension  of  its  ultimate  nature,  and  yet  with  a  nice  sense  of 
whether  given  experiences  meet  its  requirements  or  do  not.  In 
other  words,  it  may  be  applied  without  being  reflected  upon.  The 
child  soon  learns  to  recognize  that  the  green  lion  which  marches 
across  the  ceiling  when  the  light  has  been  carried  off,  and  he  has 
been  left  to  the  phantom  terrors  of  a  solitary  crib,  is  not  exactly 
like  the  lion  which  lives  in  a  cage,  and  can  be  seen  only  by  paying 
admission.  The  behavior  of  this  lion  is  too  inconsequent.  He  is 
real  enough  to  inspire  fear,  but  he  is,  nevertheless,  not  exactly 
real.  The  presence  of  the  light  is  enough  to  exorcise  him.  And 
even  the  man  who  has  no  settled  opinions  touching  the  existence 
and  nature  of  ghosts,  is  apt  to  think  that  a  ghost  capable  of  being 
photographed  is  more  real  a  ghost  than  the  one  which  can  at  best 

1  Chapter  IV. 


105 

only  make  itself  apparent  to  the  terrified  rustic  at  dead  of  night. 
We  have  all  our  lives  been  judging  our  experiences,  and  arranging 
them  as  a  result  of  that  judgment.  What  we  see  we  try  to  touch ; 
and  what  we  touch  we  perhaps  try  to  taste  and  smell.  No  one 
approaches  mature  life  without  finding  himself  in  a  world  of  things 
pretty  well  known,  and  without  settled  habits  of  testing  things  to 
find  whether  they  are  real,  that  is,  whether  they  belong  to  that 
orderly  class  of  experiences  which  have  fallen  into  a  regular  sys- 
tem, or  whether  they  defy  such  an  arrangement  and  must  be 
relegated  to  a  class  of  a  different  kind. 

Hence  it  does  not  occur  to  the  plain  man  to  offer  proof  that 
his  body  is  real.  He  knows  that  it  is,  even  if  he  cannot  define 
what  he  means  by  the  word.  He  only  busies  himself  with  the 
reality  of  those  things  which  are  still  in  doubt.  And  the  psycholo- 
gist, standing  upon  the  same  basis,  but  desiring  more  accurate 
knowledge  and  having  forced  upon  his  attention  many  problems 
which  do  not  fall  within  the  horizon  of  the  plain  man,  makes  more 
of  a  coil  about  the  reality  or  the  unreality  of  things,  but  he 
assumes  the  reality  of  his  body  and  of  an  external  world  just  as 
confidently  as  does  the  former.  His  proposed  method  of  distin- 
guishing sensations  from  ideas  is  a  convenient  expedient  for  decid- 
ing doubtful  cases,  but  it  assumes  that  the  distinction  has  already  been 
drawn.  As  I  have  suggested  above,  it  may  sometime  turn  out  to 
be  a  very  useful  expedient,  and  we  have  no  right  to  condemn  it 
because  the  man  who  uses  it  remains  a  psychologist  and  does  not 
become  an  epistemologist. 

There  is,  then,  but  one  ultimate  method  of  deciding  whether  a 
given  experience  is  to  be  classed  as  a  sensation  or  not.  We  must 
discover  whether  it  takes  its  place  among  those  elements  of  our 
experience  which  so  connect  themselves  together  as  to  form  what 
we  recognize  as  the  system  of  material  things.1  It  has  long  been 
recognized  that  there  is  an  orderliness  in  this  system  which  appears 
to  be  lacking  in  our  other  experiences. 

For  example,  in  my  present  perception  of  the  table  before  me, 
I  recognize  a  definite  expanse  of  color,  determined  as  to  quantity 
and  quality.  I  can  vary  this  by  changing  my  position  or  by  chang- 

1 1  beg  the  reader  to  regard  the  account  of  the  external  world  and  of  sensation 
given  in  this  chapter  and  in  the  next  one  as  a  provisional  account,  which  should 
be  supplemented  by  what  is  said  in  Chapters  VIII  and  IX,  and  also  by  what  is  said 
in  Chapters  XXIII  and  XXIV. 


106  The  External  World 

ing  the  position  of  the  table.  I  can  cause  it  to  disappear  by  closing 
my  eyes.  But  I  cannot  bring  about  any  of  these  changes  unless  I 
adopt  the  appropriate  means  of  effecting  the  particular  result  at 
which  I  am  aiming.  These  changes  in  my  experience  follow  upon 
certain  other  changes  in  my  experience  in  a  fixed  and  orderly  way ; 
and  I  must  acquaint  myself  with  this  order  if  I  wish  to  control  the 
experiences. 

What  I  have  called  ideas,  on  the  other  hand,  do  not  take  their 
place  in  this  system.  Whatever  may  be  the  laws  which  determine 
their  appearances  and  disappearances,  they  are  not  the  same  laws 
which  are  found  in  the  world  of  sensations.  I  can  perform  all 
sorts  of  arbitrary  operations  upon  an  imaginary  table  —  turn  it 
from  black  to  white,  increase  or  diminish  its  size,  change  its  shape, 
annihilate  it  and  recreate  it  —  pretty  much  as  I  please ;  I  am  free 
here  as  I  am  not  free  in  dealing  with  sensations.  Moreover,  when 
I  dismiss  an  imaginary  table  from  my  thought,  it  really  seerns  to 
be  gone,  to  be  annihilated  ;  while  a  table  that  I  have  once  seen  and 
no  longer  see,  I  am  yet  forced  to  regard  as  holding  some  sort  of 
place  in  the  system  in  which  I  have  accorded  it  a  place.  I  may 
still  explain  certain  of  my  experiences  by  referring  to  it,  just  as  if 
I  still  saw  it.  Even  if  it  be  broken  to  pieces  or  destroyed  by  fire, 
I  cannot  think,  when  I  have  once  arisen  to  the  conception  of  a 
system  of  real  things,  that  that  system  is  now  just  what  it  would 
have  been  if  that  table  had  not  held  a  place  in  it.  The  imaginary 
table  appears  to  be  mortal,  and  the  table  which  presents  itself  to 
the  sense  seems  to  enjoy  some  sort  of  immortality. 

But  here  the  objection  may  be  raised,  and  with  good  show  of 
reason,  that  in  the  above  there  is  an  unwarrantable  transition  from 
sensations  to  things.  Have  we  not  seen  that,  when  we  speak  of 
seeing  a  real  thing,  there  is  usually  but  little  in  the  sense,  and  that 
by  far  the  greater  portion  of  the  elements  which  we  conceive  as 
constituting  the  thing  exist,  in  so  far  as  they  exist  in  our  expe- 
rience at  all,  not  in  the  sense  but  in  the  imagination  ?  Why,  then, 
speak  of  our  sensations  as  connected  together  into  a  system  and 
constituting  an  orderly  world?  Can  anything  be  more  irregular 
than  the  actual  sense-experience  which  we  have  of  things  ?  I  see 
my  table  to-day  and  I  do  not  see  it  again  until  day  after  to-morrow ; 
on  some  occasions  I  see  it  but  do  not  touch  it ;  the  under  side  of  it 
I  happen  never  to  have  seen  at  all.  What  sort  of  material  is  this 
of  which  to  make  a  real  table  holding  its  place  in  a  real  world  ? 


What  we  Mean  by  the  External  World  107 

That  world  appears  before  the  windows  of  the  senses  only  in  fugi- 
tive glimpses,  and  we  may  piece  these  together  as  we  will,  but 
they  still  remain  ridiculously  inadequate  to  make  such  a  world  as 
we  conceive  the  world  to  be.  Is  the  life  history  of  a  table  nothing 
more  than  a  discontinuous  series  of  flashes  ?  It  is  clear  that  we 
cannot  take  quite  literally  the  statement  that  our  sensations  fall 
into  an  ordered  system  and  constitute  what  we  mean  by  a  world  of 
things. 

If,  however,  we  understand  the  statement  aright,  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  not  approve  it.  It  is  quite  true  that  our 
sensations  do  not  of  themselves  constitute  our  consciousness  of  a 
world  of  real  things  ;  this  world  does  not  present  itself  to  us 
immediately  as  a  complex  sensational  content  upon  which  we  gaze. 
It  is  rather  a  something  built  up  out  of  the  materials  furnished  by 
sense,  supplemented  by  elements  which,  while  not  themselves  sen- 
sations, are  made  to  represent  such.  Sensations,  memories  of  sen- 
sations, and  imaginary  experiences  which  are  not  memories,  though 
their  elements  have  no  independent  source,  all  enter  into  its  com- 
position. Our  sensations,  actual  and  remembered,  are  separated 
by  gaps  which  must  be  filled  before  there  emerges  the  system  of 
experiences  which  we  call  the  world  of  real  things. 

The  gradual  emergence  of  such  a  system  in  an  individual  con- 
sciousness is  described  at  length  by  the  psychologist,  and  is  termed 
by  him  the  development  of  a  consciousness  of  the  external  world. 
We  may  take  such  a  description,  clear  away  all  reference  to  the 
psychological  assumption  of  the  existence  of  an  external  world 
beyond  consciousness  and  not  composed  of  consciousness-elements, 
and,  taking  our  stand  upon  ground  proper  to  the  metaphysician, 
see  in  it  a  description  of  the  elements  which  enter  into  our  concep- 
tion of  an  external  world  when  we  speak  of  such  without  reference 
to  this  consciousness  or  that.  It  is  merely  a  question  of  an 
analysis  of  conceptions;  the  psychologist  asks  himself  just  what 
he  means  when  he  conceives  of  this  man  or  that  as  being  conscious 
of  the  external  world ;  the  metaphysician  asks  himself  just  what 
is  meant  by  the  expression  "  the  external  world,"  and  sees  that  he 
can  answer  this  question  independently.  Still,  he  can  use  the 
analysis  made  by  the  psychologist ;  it  may  be  of  no  small  help  to 
him,  if  he  will  avoid  being  misled  by  the  assumptions  included  in 
the  reasoning  which  he  is  following. 

He  may  see  clearly  —  a  point  of  especial  importance  at  this 


108  The  External  World 

stage  of  my  discussion  —  that  the  psychologist  lays  great  stress 
upon  the  sensational  elements  in  the  consciousness  of  an  external 
world,  makes  them,  in  fact,  the  basis  and  the  justification  of  the 
whole  construction.  When  he  reflects  upon  his  own  consciousness 
of  the  world  at  any  moment,  he  realizes  that  this  is  justified.  He 
sees  that  the  imaginary  constituents  of  the  world  of  real  things 
which  he  finds  in  his  experience  do  not  take  their  place  in  that 
construction  as  imaginary  elements,  but  as  representative  of  sensa- 
tional elements.  It  is  their  content,  so  to  speak,  which  belongs  to 
the  construction,  not  the  content  with  the  added  characteristic  of 
belonging  to  the  class  called  imaginary.  There  is,  thus,  a  sense  in 
which  we  may  say  that  the  external  world  is  constituted  by  the 
sensational  elements  in  our  experience.  These  elements  appear 
to  belong  to  it  in  a  way  in  which  other  elements  do  not. 
They  constitute  it,  and  elements  remembered  or  imagined  merely 
represent  it. 

So  important  is  the  point  here  insisted  upon  that  I  may  be  per- 
mitted to  delay  upon  it,  even  at  the  risk  of  a  little  repetition.  I 
am  sitting  here  in  my  room  and  I  see  my  table  before  me.  Every- 
one is  willing  to  admit  that  this  particular  experience  of  color  is  a 
sensation.  It  appears  strange  to  no  one  that  I  should  see  my  desk 
under  such  circumstances.  Beyond  my  room  is  a  hall,  and  at  the 
end  of  this  a  door.  I  say  that  I  think  of  the  door  as  there  —  that 
I  imagine  it,  but  do  not  see  it.  Both  in  the  case  of  the  desk  and 
of  the  door  I  believe  that  I  am  concerned  with  real  things  in  a  real 
external  world,  but  I  unhesitatingly  draw  a  distinction  between 
seeing  a  thing  and  imagining  it. 

The  door  imagined  is  not  an  arbitrary  product  of  my  imagina- 
tion ;  it  is  not  mere  fancy.  It  has  its  definite  place  in  my  concep- 
tion of  the  external  world.  Hence  it  does  not  appear  to  be  by  any 
means  so  lawless  a  thing  as  a  purely  imaginary  door,  and  what  has 
been  said  of  the  distinction  between  sensational  and  imaginary 
elements  in  consciousness  seems  to  be  contradicted.  Whether  it 
appear  in  my  consciousness  as  imaginary  or  not,  I  think  of  that 
door  at  the  end  of  the  hall  as  a  real  door,  and  I  feel  that  I  cannot 
by  an  act  of  will  change  its  nature  or  annihilate  it  altogether. 
But  the  contradiction  disappears  when  we  bear  in  mind  what  has 
just  been  said  above,  namely,  that  the  imaginary  elements  in  our 
consciousness  of  the  external  world  are  not  imaginary  elements 
pure  and  simple,  but  are  imaginary  elements  which  are  regarded 


What  we  Mean  by  the  External  World  109 

as  representative  of  sensational.  They  must  be  what  they  are,  for 
their  nature  is  determined  by  the  content  which  they  represent. 
We  have  here,  not  sensation,  but,  as  I  have  expressed  it  a  few 
pages  back,  a  reference  to  sensation,  and  this  must  be  present  in  all 
our  affirmations  of  the  reality  of  things. 

That  even  these  imaginary  elements,  which  help  to  fill  out  our 
conception  of  the  external  world,  do  not  themselves  fall  directly 
into  the  system  of  real  things,  we  recognize  when  we  call  them 
imaginary.  As  I  have  said,  it  appears  strange  to  no  one  that, 
sitting  here,  I  should  see  my  table  and  only  imagine  that  door. 
What  does  this  mean?  It  means  that  the  table  as  seen,  this  par- 
ticular visual  sensation,  is  actually  in  the  setting  in  which  things 
must  be  if  they  are  to  constitute  elements  in  the  external  world. 
The  door  which  I  imagine  is  not  in  such  a  setting.  Were  I  stand- 
ing in  the  hall,  i.e.  were  the  setting  other  tKan  it  now  is,  I  would 
see  the  door.  Whether  a  given  experience  is  or  is  not  in  the 
setting  which  guarantees  it  a  sensation,  men  may  know  very  well, 
as  I  have  indicated,  without  knowing  just  how  they  know  it,  and 
without  giving  much  conscious  thought  to  the  distinction  between 
what  is  real  and  what  is  imaginary.  We  cannot,  then,  legitimately 
quarrel  with  the  statement  that  sensations  constitute  the  external 
world  of  things,  and  that  the  imaginary  elements  in  our  conception 
of  such  a  world  are  merely  representative  of  sensations. 

Thus  we  see  that  by  the  expression  "  the  external  world  "  we 
mean  a  construct  in  consciousness,  and  a  construct  in  consciousness 
of  a  peculiar  kind.  We  do  not  mean  precisely  what  we  do  when 
we  use  such  a  phrase  as  "  my  consciousness  of  the  external  world 
at  this  time  or  at  that."  We  have  seen  that,  when  we  think  of 
certain  consciousness-contents  as  having  their  place  in  the  con- 
struct which  we  call  the  external  world,  we  abstract  from  the  degree 
of  vividness  with  which  they  may  happen  to  appear  in  conscious- 
ness. Sensations  are  not  necessarily  vivid,  and  provided  that  we 
have  some  sort  of  proof  that  a  certain  experience  belongs  to  this 
class,  we  do  not  refuse  to  accord  it  a  place  in  the  system  of  real 
things  merely  because  it  does  not  stand  out  prominently  in  con- 
sciousness. Such  differences  we  describe  as  differences  in  our 
perception  of  things,  not  as  differences  in  the  reality  of  things. 
Of  course,  when  one  has  arrived  at  the  notion  of  an  orderly  system 
of  things,  and  has  learned  to  account  for  this  or  that  peculiarity  in 
one's  experience  by  a  reference  to  other  parts  of  the  system,  one 


110  The  External  World 

does  not  regard  a  difference  in  the  vividness  with  which  experiences 
present  themselves  as  something  inexplicable  and  independent  of 
the  system  as  a  whole.  Nevertheless,  one  recognizes  that  what  we 
call  the  reality  of  a  thing  has  little  to  do  with  the  vividness  with 
which  it  presents  itself  in  consciousness. 

We  have  also  seen  that  what  I  call  "  my  consciousness  of  an 
external  world  "  is  a  complex  of  sensational  and  imaginary  elements, 
and  yet  we  do  not  regard  real  things  as  composed  of  elements  of  the 
two  classes. 

So  little  does  it  appear  to  be  necessary  to  mark  this  distinction 
when  one  is  discussing  real  things,  that  most  persons  experience 
an  emotion  of  surprise  when  it  is  pointed  out  to  them  that  their 
consciousness  of  things  is  largely  made  up  of  imaginary  elements. 
They  are  interested  in  things,  not  in  their  percepts  as  percepts ; 
and  when  we  are  concerned  with  things,  the  imaginary  elements  in 
our  percept  are  representative  of  sensational ;  they  are  important 
to  us  primarily  on  account  of  the  function  which  they  perform,  and 
we  pay  no  attention  to  the  fact  that  they  are  in  themselves  to  be 
differentiated  from  sensations.  The  qualities  of  things,  as  we  call 
such  elements  of  our  experience  as  are  conceived  to  have  a  place 
in  the  system  under  discussion,  are  not  conceived  as  existing  now 
in  the  sense  and  now  in  the  imagination  ;  they  are  simply  regarded 
as  forming  a  constituent  part  of  that  system  and  as  sharing  its 
reality. 

This  distinction  between  "  the  external  world  "  and  "  my  con- 
sciousness of  the  external  world  "  —  a  distinction  drawn  equally  by 
the  plain  man,  the  man  of  science,  and  the  metaphysician  — 
becomes  clearer  when  we  see  in  it  an  instance  of  the  very  common 
distinction  between  that  which  is  symbolized  or  represented  and 
the  symbol  which  stands  for  the  former. 

This  distinction  has  been  discussed  at  length  in  Chapter  III, 
and  what  has  there  been  said  is  of  importance  to  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  doctrine  of  the  external  world  and  our  conscious- 
ness of  it.  What  we  call  "  a  thing  "  is  a  complex  construction, 
and  we  all  believe  that  things  are  or  may  be  much  more  complex 
than  the  elements  regarded  as  belonging  to  them  that  we  actually 
find  in  our  experience  —  more  complex,  in  other  words,  than  that 
of  which  we  are  intuitively  conscious. 

When,  for  instance,  I  look  at  my  table,  I  realize  that  even  when 
I  supplement  the  color-sensations  which  I  experience  by  other 


What  we  Mean  by  the  External  World  111 

color-sensations  remembered  or  imagined,  and  by  similar  materials 
drawn  from  the  province  of  the  other  senses,  yet  all  the  elements 
that  are  actually  in  my  consciousness  do  not  exhaust  the  sum  total 
of  the  experiences  which  the  words  "  my  table  "  may  be  made  to 
cover.  I  distinguish  between  all  that  is  in  my  thought,  and  all 
that  belongs  to  the  thing.  I  regard  the  thing  as  more  complex 
than  my  representation  of  it.  And  when  I  have  to  do,  not  with 
a  single  real  thing  like  a  table,  but  with  the  system  of  real  things 
as  a  whole  —  when  I  talk  about  the  external  world  —  I  am  quite 
ready  to  admit,  if  the  matter  be  brought  to  my  attention,  that  what 
is  in  my  consciousness  is  a  very  inadequate  representation  of  the 
external  world.  The  external  world  I  conceive  to  be  something 
indefinitely  richer  and  more  complex. 

I  have  said  that  this  distinction  between  our  experiences  and 
the  external  things  for  which  they  are  conceived  to  stand  is  by  no 
means  peculiar  to  the  metaphysician.  He  merely  tries  to  make 
clear  what  the  distinction  is,  and  to  avoid  the  inconsistency  into 
which  others  seem  to  fall.  The  plain  man  and  the  psychologist 
regard  the  real  things  for  which  our  experiences  stand  as  existing 
wholly  outside  of  consciousness  and  as  separated  by  an  impassable 
gulf  from  our  experiences  as  a  whole.  At  the  same  time  they 
tacitly  assume  that  we  directly  perceive  these  same  real  things 
and  are  not  cut  off  from  them  at  all.  The  impossibility  of  accept- 
ing their  doctrine  as  final  has  been  pointed  out,  and  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  repeat  what  has  been  said.  The  metaphysician  must  retain 
the  distinction  which  they  have  recognized,  but  he  must  so  define 
it  as  to  avoid  self-contradiction. 

It  is  not  possible  at  this  stage  in  my  discussion  to  exhibit  the 
full  significance  of  such  expressions  as  "  my  consciousness  "  and 
"  the  consciousness  of  another  man  "  ;  but  it  is  at  least  possible  to 
recognize  that  the  distinction  between  a  thing  as  it  is  actually 
found  in  my  experience  and  a  thing  as  it  is  conceived  to  be  in  its 
own  nature,  becomes  a  comprehensible  and  by  no  means  an  absurd 
distinction  when  it  is  perceived  to  be  a  distinction  between  symbol 
and  that  which  is  symbolized.  In  the  one  case  we  are  concerned 
with  a  given  content  in  consciousness  in  itself  considered,  and  in 
the  other  with  a  content  in  consciousness  regarded  as  representative 
of  some  other  complex  of  consciousness-elements.  It  is  perfectly 
just  to  draw  a  distinction  between  symbol  and  thing  symbolized, 
but  in  drawing  this  distinction  we  must  not  grow  incoherent  or 


112  The  External  World 

unintelligible.  We  must  remember  what  is  meant  by  a  symbol, 
and  what  is  the  true  nature  of  symbolic  knowledge.  Within  the 
limits  of  experience  —  within  consciousness,  in  other  words  —  one 
complex  may  symbolize  or  represent  another ;  but  it  is  inconceiv- 
able that  any  experience  should  symbolize  a  something  wholly 
beyond  experience,  a  something  so  completely  cut  off  from  experi- 
ence as  the  external  world  is  sometimes  conceived  to  be. 

The  external  world  of  real  things  is,  thus,  a  construct  in  con- 
sciousness. It  is  a  system  of  elements  related  to  each  other  in 
certain  fixed  ways.  When  we  speak  of  this  or  that  man  as  being 
conscious  of  this  or  that  aspect  of  it,  we  are  distinguishing  between 
a  more  or  less  satisfactory  representative  of  the  system,  and  the 
system  itself.  That  we  can  make  this  distinction  does  not  imply 
that  we  have  in  mind  an  intuitive  consciousness  of  both  the  repre- 
sentative in  question  and  the  system  represented  by  it,  and  that 
we  place  them  in  thought  side  by  side.  Our  procedure  is  just  what 
it  is  in  other  cases  in  which  we  distinguish  between  the  symbol 
and  that  which  it  stands  for. 

We  may  regard  one  man  as  having  a  very  inadequate  notion  of 
what  is  meant  by  a  million  units,  and  another  as  having  a  truer 
conception  of  that  number,  but  we  never  dream  of  the  latter  as 
being  intuitively  conscious  of  a  million  as  he  may  be  of  two  or 
three  individuals,  nor  do  we  arrogate  to  ourselves  the  power  of  thus 
knowing  so  large  a  number.  And  yet  we  can  distinguish  between 
the  million,  in  itself  considered,  and  the  representative  of  it  which 
is  actually  present  in  the  consciousness  of  any  individual  at  any 
moment.  The  latter  is  just  this  particular  experience,  definitely 
limited,  and  containing  no  overwhelming  number  of  constituent 
elements ;  the  former  is  to  us  rather  a  way  of  looking  at  certain 
things  than  an  individual  thing,  rather  a  formula  than  a  fact,  rather 
a  rule  for  dealing  with  experiences  than  a  given  experience.  It  is 
an  ideal,  a  construction  which  obtains  its  significance  ultimately 
from  that  intuitive  consciousness  which  we  have  of  small  numbers, 
and  its  justification  from  the  fact  that  by  means  of  it  and  other 
similar  conceptions  we  take  our  departure  from  and  return  to  such 
intuitive  experiences  in  an  orderly  way,  predicting  and  verifying 
our  experiences  as  we  could  not  without  the  aid  of  these  concep- 
tions. 

When  we  are  concerned,  not  with  the  elements  we  actually 
have  in  mind  when  we  speak  of  a  million,  but  with  the  conception 


What  ive  Mean  by  the  External  World  113 

of  a  million  in  itself  considered,  we  abstract  from  the  fact  that  the 
units  of  which  it  is  assumed  to  be  composed  are  not  present  in  con- 
sciousness as  are  the  units  which  compose  the  number  two,  and  we 
treat  our  million  as  though  it  were  composed  of  the  same  materials. 
For  the  purposes  of  an  arithmetical  calculation,  it  is  of  no  conse- 
quence whether  our  consciousness  of  the  group  of  units  with  which 
we  are  dealing  be  intuitive  or  symbolic.  If  we  reason  well,  the 
results  at  which  we  ultimately  arrive  are  the  same.  And  it  is  not 
nonsense  for  us  to  say  that  it  is  conceivable  that  to  a  consciousness 
of  a  different  nature  from  our  own  a  million  units  might  be  intui- 
tively present,  might  be  recognized  clearly  and  distinctly,  as  small 
groups  of  two  or  three  units  present  themselves  to  us.  We  cannot 
picture  such  a  state  of  affairs,  but  we  can  think  it ;  that  is,  we  can 
make  a  mental  construction  which  will  fairly  represent  it ;  we  can 
represent  it  to  ourselves  symbolically.  We  mean  something  when 
we  say  it,  and  our  conviction  that  we  do  so  cannot  be  shaken  even 
by  the  lack  of  clearness  in  the  metaphysician's  attempt  at  an  ex- 
position of  what  we  mean. 

So  it  is  with  our  conception  of  the  external  world.  We  may 
admit  that  some  frame  a  better  notion  of  it  than  others,  and  that 
we  all  have  something  actually  in  mind,  when  we  speak  of  it,  which 
but  very  imperfectly  represents  its  indefinite  complexity.  Never- 
theless, even  in  thus  speaking,  we  distinguish  in  some  sort  between 
the  external  world  as  it  is  and  the  ideas  of  it  which  this  or  that 
man  may  happen  to  cherish.  We  distinguish  between  the  repre- 
sentatives of  it  in  individual  minds,  and  the  ideal  system  of  which 
they  are  supposed  to  be  representative.  As  in  the  former  instance, 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  conceiving  of  a  consciousness 
in  which  vastly  more  of  the  real  world  is  intuitively  present  than 
is  the  case  with  us. 

It  is  thus  quite  possible  for  the  metaphysician  to  hold  to  the 
common  psychological  distinction  between  the  conception  of  an 
external  world  which  is  built  up  in  this  mind  or  in  that,  and 
the  original  which  this  conception  is  supposed  imperfectly  to  repre- 
sent. But  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  quite  impossible 
for  the  psychologist  to  recognize  that  his  conception  of  the  exter- 
nal world  is  but  an  indifferent  representative  of  the  external  world 
itself,  if  this  world  be  a  something  quite  outside  of  consciousness. 
No  man  can  compare  two  things,  one  of  which  in  no  way  enters 
into  his  experience.  He  who  is  wholly  shut  up  to  his  copy  of 


114  The  External  World 

a  world  cannot  even  know  that  it  is  a  copy,  and  of  course  he  can- 
not know  that  it  is  an  imperfect  copy.  He  must,  in  some  sense  of 
the  word  be  conscious  of  both,  if  he  is  to  mark  the  distinction 
between  copy  and  original.  But  in  what  sense  ?  For  it  seems 
pertinent,  if  he  be  conscious  of  both,  to  ask,  of  what  use  is  the 
copy  ?  and  why  if  it  exist  at  all,  need  it  be  imperfect  ?  The  diffi- 
culty disappears  when  we  realize  that  we  are  not  dealing  with 
original  and  copy  in  the  sense  in  which  the  psychologist  is  tempted 
to  believe  that  we  are  ;  but  that  we  are  dealing  with  the  distinction 
between  symbol  and  thing  symbolized.  Evidently  there  is  a  sense 
in  which  both  must  exist  in  consciousness,  for  were  there  not,  it 
would  be  impossible  for  the  symbol  to  be  recognized  as  a  symbol. 
It  is  only  when  we  are  representing  the  distinction  to  ourselves 
diagram matically  that  we  have  the  right. to  place  the  two  side  by 
side  as  though  they  were  numerically  distinct  in  all  their  elements. 
Original  and  copy  are  here  distinguishably  different ;  nevertheless, 
we  find  that  the  one  experience  may  have  its  place  in  the  copy,  and 
at  the  same  time  may  form  a  part  of  that  system  of  things  which 
we  call  the  real  world. 


CHAPTER  VII 
SENSATIONS   AND   "THINGS" 

WE  may  sum  up  the  conclusions  so  far  arrived  at  as  follows : 

(1)  the  real  external  world  is  a  complex  of  consciousness-elements ; 

(2)  when  we  speak  of  our  consciousness  of  it,  we  recognize  that 
what  we  actually  have  in  mind  is  a  compound  of  sensational  and 
of  imaginary  elements,  the  latter  largely  predominating ;  (3)  but 
we  do  not  think  of  imaginary  elements,  as  such,  as  actually  enter- 
ing into  the  composition  of  the  real  world  —  we  see  that  the  only 
elements  which  really  fit  into  the  system  are  the  sensational  ele- 
ments ;  (4)  it  seems  to  follow  that  the  real  world  which  we  are 
discussing  is  a  complex  of  sensational  elements  and  of  none  other. 

Here  there  appears  to  stare  us  in  the  face  something  very  like 
a  contradiction,  an  antinomy.  Have  we  not  concluded  that  the 
external  world  cannot  be  external  in  such  a  sense  as  to  be  wholly 
beyond  consciousness,  since  in  that  case  it  could  mean  to  us  nothing 
at  all?  On  the  other  hand,  has  it  not  been  pointed  out  that  the 
actual  experiences  we  have  of  things,  our  sensations,  are  something 
very  scrappy  and  chaotic  until  they  are  supplemented  by  imaginary 
elements  and  built,  together  with  them,  into  a  single  system  ?  If 
this  system  is  not  the  real  world,  where  is  this  world  ?  It  cannot 
be  out  of  consciousness ;  and  it  does  not  seem  to  be  in  conscious- 
ness, for  our  consciousness  of  it  is  just  this  combination  of  sen- 
sory and  imaginary  elements  which  we  have  discovered  that  the 
real  world  cannot  be.  It  appears,  thus,  that  the  sensational  ele- 
ments which  are  found  in  consciousness  will  not  suffice  to  make  a 
world,  and  that  the  only  things  we  have  at  hand,  with  which  to 
supplement  them,  are  incapable  of  entering  into  its  composition. 

But  the  reader  has  probably  seen  at  once  that  this  antinomy  is 
only  an  apparent  one,  and  that  what  has  been  said,  in  the  last 
chapter,  of  the  distinction  between  symbol  and  thing  symbolized, 
representative  and  that  for  which  it  stands,  is  sufficient  to  conjure 
it  away.  When  we  consider  our  consciousness  of  the  external 

115 


116  The  External  World 

world,  when  we  confine  our  attention  to  the  symbol,  we  perceive, 
of  course,  that  the  elements  composing  it  are  partly  real  and  partly 
imaginary.  But  the  symbol,  in  itself  considered,  is  not  the  external 
world.  It  is  a  representative  of  it  and  no  more. 

By  the  external  world  we  mean  that  for  which  the  symbol 
stands,  the  ideal  system  of  experiences  of  which  the  symbol  is 
admitted  to  be  an  inadequate  representative.  In  thinking  of  this  we 
are  abstracting  from  the  inadequacy  of  the  symbol.  In  saying 
that  this  is  constituted  of  sensational  elements  we  are  simply  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that  certain  elements  in  the  symbol  fall  directly 
into  place  in  this  system  and  that  others  do  not,  and  also  the  fact 
that  every  element  which  is  conceived  as  entering  into  it  must 
enter  into  it  in  the  way  in  which  these  are  perceived  to.  In  the 
real  world  there  is  no  distinction  between  sensory  and  imaginary. 
Such  distinctions  have  to  do  with  the  symbol,  not  with  the  system 
of  experiences  for  which  it  stands.  They  must  be  abstracted  from 
when  we  decide  to  occupy  ourselves  with  the  latter. 

If,  however,  we  abstract  from  such  distinctions,  what  right  have 
we  to  go  on  using  the  word  "sensation"?  With  what  color  of  justice 
can  we  say  that  the  system  of  real  things  is  composed  of  sensa- 
tional elements?  Here,  at  least,  we  have  a  sound  and  solid  ob- 
jection. I  must  frankly  admit  that  these  words  contain  a  psycho- 
logical reference  which  should  be  abstracted  from  if  we  intend  to 
turn  away  from  the  symbol  and  consider  only  that  for  which  it 
stands.  When  we  call  a  given  experience  a  sensation,  we  do  not 
merely  think  of  it  as  having  its  place  in  the  system  of  experiences 
which  we  call  the  real  world.  We  mean  something  more  than 
this.  We  think  of  it  as  having  a  certain  kind  of  existence  in  a 
given  consciousness,  as  being  different  from  other  elements  in  that 
consciousness.  In  other  words,  when  we  speak  thus,  we  think,  not 
merely  of  the  real  world,  but  of  some  one  as  perceiving  that  world. 
These  two  thoughts  are  not  identical,  and  they  should  not  be  con- 
founded. Why,  then,  use  expressions  which  appear  to  be  mis- 
leading ? 

To  this  question  I  must  reply  as  follows :  — 

1.  I  use  these  expressions  because  I  can  find  nothing  better. 
Language  was  not  framed  to  mark  those  distinctions  which  inter- 
est the  few  who  devote  themselves  to  reflective  thought,  and  which 
pass  unnoticed  by  the  plain  man.  If,  instead  of  using  the  expres- 
sion "  sensational  elements,"  I  used  the  expression  "  elements  of 


Sensations  and  "Things"  117 

things,"  I  should  probably  set  my  readers  thinking  about  atoms  or 
molecules,  or  something  else  about  which  I  do  not  in  the  least  wish 
them  to  think  in  this  connection.  Moreover,  the  statement  that 
the  world  of  real  things  is  made  up  of  "  elements  of  things  "  ap- 
pears tautological  and  unfruitful.  It  carries  with  it  no  suggestion 
of  how  one  is  to  get  at  these  elements  and  examine  them  one  by 
one. 

2.  The  expression  "sensational  elements,"  faulty  as  it  is,  is 
not   without   its    advantages.      For   one    thing,    it   suggests,  and 
rightly  suggests,  that,  when  we  are    discussing   the   nature   and 
elements  of  the  external  world,  we  are,  in  the  last  analysis,  deal- 
ing with  consciousness,  with  experience,  and  not  with  an  incom- 
prehensible something  beyond  it. 

3.  The  expression  furnishes  us,  furthermore,  with  a  sugges- 
tion of  the  way  in  which  experiences  are  to  be  analyzed.     Both  the 
plain  man  and  the  psychologist  are  familiar  with  a  classification  of 
the  sensations,  and,  hence,  with  what  has  been  called  the  "  meta- 
physical division"  of  things.     There  is  no  reason  why  the  meta- 
physician should  not  make  use  of  the  excellent  work  which  has 
been  done  by  the  psychologist,  and  turn  it  to  his  purposes.     All 
the  elements  which  the  latter  succeeds  in  discovering  in  any  ex- 
perienced content  are  there  for  the  former  as  well ;  and  the  fact 
that  one  man  is  studying  them  as  partial  constituents  of  a  world 
of  real  things  and  another  as  experiences  in  a  given  consciousness, 
does  not  prevent  their  being  just  what  they  are  —  a  complex  of 
such  and  such  elements  in  consciousness. 

4.  Finally,  the  expression  "sensational  elements"  does  bring 
in,  after  a  fashion,  the  notion  of  the  external  world  with  which  we 
are    concerned.     The  psychologist   refers  sensations  to  the  outer 
world,  and  he  distinguishes  between  sensations  and  the  copies  of 
sensational  elements  which  are  furnished  by  memory  and  imagina- 
tion.    To  him  the  external  world  as  it  is  reflected  in  sensation  is 
as    immediately    known  as  the  external  world  can  be.     It  is  upon 
sensation  that  he  bases  the  whole  construction  which  he  calls  the 
idea  of  the  external  world  in  a  given  consciousness.     Imaginary 
elements  enter  into  it  only  as  representative  of  sensations.     This 
characteristic    of   sensations,  namely,  their  capability  of  entering 
directly  into  this  construction,  the  metaphysician  may  lay  hold  of, 
even  while  he  abstracts  from  other  suggestions  which  the  word 
"sensation  "  has  for  the  psychologist.       What  the  latter  regards  as 


118  The  External  World 

constitutive  of  the  external  world  as  known,  the  former  may  regard 
as  constitutive  of  the  external  world,  abstracting  from  the  relation 
of  knowledge  as  it  is  presented  in  the  psychological  doctrine  of 
representative  perception,  and  passing  from  symbol  to  thing 
signified. 

These  considerations  appear  to  justify  the  statement  that  the 
system  of  real  things  is  composed  of  sensational  elements.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  there  seems  to  be  no  better  form  of  expression  for 
the  truth  here  indicated,  and  the  reader  is  expressly  warned  against 
the  psychological  associations  which  cling  to  the  words.  The 
sense  in  which  they  are  meant  to  be  used  is  explained  in  the  pre- 
ceding pages,  and  I  hope  that  no  other  sense  will  be  read  into 
them. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  philosopher  spoke  of  reality  as 
though  it  were  a  measurable  something  in  things,  and  as  though 
it  could  be  present  in  this  or  that  thing  in  varying  quantities. 
God  was  the  "  ens  realissimum"  and  finite  things  possessed  reality 
in  a  minor  degree.  The  search  for  the  causes  of  given  effects  was 
guided  by  such  maxims  as  that  a  cause  must  contain  at  least  as 
much  reality  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  effect  which  is  referred  to  it. 

For  example,  Descartes  argues  that,  since  he  found  in  his  mind 
the  idea  of  God,  God  must  exist  as  the  cause  of  that  idea,  for  the 
idea  in  question  contained  too  great  a  quantity  of  reality  to  be 
referred  to  any  lesser  cause,  and  it  seemed  self-evident  that  the 
greater  could  not  come  from  the  less  nor  the  more  perfect  from 
the  less  perfect.  The  same  error  lies  at  the  root  of  the  quibble 
that  finds  God's  "  existence  "  (which  here  means  real  existence)  to 
be  contained  in  His  "essence."  The  existence  is  here  treated  as 
part  of  the  total  content  —  a  something  which  may  in  general  be 
added  to  or  taken  away  from  the  other  determinations  of  a  thing, 
but  which  is  in  this  case  discovered  to  be  so  bound  up  with  the 
other  determinations  that  it  cannot  be  so  taken  away. 

We  rarely  meet,  at  the  present  day,  with  arguments  exactly  like 
this,  yet  we  often  meet  with  arguments  in  which  a  misconception 
of  the  same  general  nature  is  present.  We  are  exhorted  to  avoid 
"phenomenalism,"  to  hold  on  to  "reality";  and  we  are  conjured 
not  to  forget  that  this  thing  or  that  —  usually  the  ego  —  is  not  a 
mere  bundle  of  states  or  activities,  but  is  a  "real  thing."  But 
what  is  a  "  real  thing  "  ? 

The  expression  as  we  find  it  used  usually  suggests  that  the 


Sensations  and  "Things"  119 

writer  admits  to  be  real  only  the  substance  or  substratum,  itself 
unperceived,  which  was  once  universally,  and  is  still  very 
commonly,  supposed  to  underlie  the  qualities  of  things.  But 
even  those  writers  who  expressly  repudiate  this  hypothetical 
entity  may  go  on  using  the  phrase  very  much  as  do  those  who  still 
cling  to  it.  It  is  plain  that,  whatever  else  they  may  have  in  mind 
when  they  employ  it,  they  at  least  have  in  mind  the  notion  that  a 
"  real  thing  "  somehow  differs  in  content  from  other  things  in  our 
experience.  They  believe  that,  in  itself  considered,  it  means  more. 
It  is  sometimes  extremely  difficult  to  gather  from  their  pages  just 
what  they  do  mean  by  a  real  thing  and  its  reality ;  but  they  evi- 
dently regard  reality  as  a  something  of  the  highest  importance, 
and  exhibit  no  little  nervousness  lest  it  should  for  some  reason  be 
allowed  to  slip  away. 

I  hope  it  has  been  made  clear  in  the  preceding  chapter  that 
reality  or  real  existence  is  not  a  something  added  to  the  content 
of  things.  I  hope,  furthermore,  that  it  has  been  made  plain  that 
it  is  not  a  something  of  such  a  nature  that  it  must  forever  lurk  in 
obscurity  —  a  something  to  be  named  from  time  to  time  with 
respect,  and  yet  never  to  be  described.  The  reader  has  probably 
already  remarked  the  fact  that  the  word  "  existence  "  is  ambigu- 
ous. It  may  be  used  (1)  to  cover  any  content  of  consciousness 
intuitively  present,  imaginary  as  well  as  real ;  and  (2)  it  may  alone, 
or  modified  by  the  adjective  "  real,"  be  used  to  discriminate  between 
consciousness-contents.  Thus,  we  often  say  that  this  thing  or  that 
does  not  exist,  but  it  is  a  mere  creature  of  the  imagination. 

It  is  with  the  second  sense  of  the  word  "  existence  "  that  we 
are  concerned  when  we  speak  of  the  existence  of  external  things. 
When  we  call  a  thing  real,  or  say  that  it  really  exists,  we  mean 
that  it  takes  its  place  in  the  system  of  experiences  which  has  been 
discussed  at  such  length  in  the  preceding  chapter.  This  is  the 
sole  ultimate  criterion  of  its  reality ;  indeed,  this  is  its  reality. 
The  reality  is  not  in  any  sense  a  part  of  its  content ;  it  is  its  rela- 
tion to  other  experiences.  This  should  be  sufficiently  clear  to 
any  one  who  will  reflect  upon  our  invariable  method  of  proving 
the  reality  of  anything.  As  we  have  seen,  we  try  to  discover  how 
the  thing  behaves,  where  it  belongs.  We  never  dream  of  investi- 
gating whether  it  has  a  "  substratum  "  underlying  it,  or  of  looking 
for  the  "  reality  "  as  a  constituent  in  it.  When  we  have  discov- 
ered that  this  thing,  this  experience  or  complex  of  experiences, 


120  The  External  World 

takes  its  place  in  the  orderly  and  coherent  system  of  experiences 
which  we  contrast  with  mere  imaginings,  we  call  it  a  real  thing. 
Its  reality  means  to  us  this,  and  nothing  more. 

But  here  it  is  very  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  the  warning 
against  misunderstanding  the  statement  that  the  external  world  is 
composed  of  sensational  elements.  It  may  be  argued  that,  if  the 
real  world  is  composed  of  sensational  elements,  it  can  only  have 
an  actual  existence  in  so  far  as  it  is  realized  in  some  particular 
consciousness.  In  other  words,  what  we  have  called  the  symbol, 
the  individual  mind's  representative  of  the  external  world,  is  all 
that  can  actually  exist.  That  for  which  the  symbol  stands,  the 
external  world  in  itself  considered,  can  only  be  regarded  as  exist- 
ing "  potentially  " ;  that  is,  it  can  only  be  regarded  as  capable  of 
being  realized  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  in  this  consciousness  or  in 
that.  It  is  a  possibility,  not  an  actuality.  Can  there  be  sensations 
at  large  ?  Sensations  which  do  not  form  part  of  some  particular 
consciousness  ?  The  world,  then,  in  so  far  as  it  actually  exists, 
must,  if  it  be  composed  of  sensational  elements,  exist  in  some  indi- 
vidual consciousness  or  consciousnesses.  And  in  so  far  as  the 
world  exists  "  potentially  "  it  cannot  really  be  said  to  exist  at  all. 
To  say  that  it  exists  "  potentially  "  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  it 
will  exist  or  may  exist,  not  to  saying  that  it  exists.  Does  it  not 
seem  to  follow  that  the  doctrine  that  the  real  world  is  composed 
of  sensational  elements  necessitates  the  inference  that  this  world 
has  no  real  existence  except  in  so  far  as  it  happens  to  be  perceived 
by  some  one  ?  in  other  words,  in  so  far  as  it  exists  intuitively  in 
some  consciousness  ? 

In  all  this  there  is  evident  the  influence  of  the  misapprehension 
against  which  the  above  warning  was  directed.  It  is  a  misappre- 
hension which  makes  very  easy  the  confusion  of  the  two  senses  of 
the  word  "  existence,"  and  the  consequent  denial  of  existence  to 
the  external  world.  If  there  is  one  source  of  error  in  philosophical 
reasonings  more  constant  and  insistent  than  any  other,  it  is  the 
fatal  tendency  to  abstract  from  this  or  that  and  then  go  on  think- 
ing and  speaking  as  though  one  had  not  thus  abstracted.  In  the 
present  instance  we  pass  from  symbol  to  thing  symbolized,  from 
the  individual's  consciousness  of  the  world  to  the  world  itself. 
We  abstract  from  the  limitations  of  the  symbol.  We  discover 
that  the  word  "existence"  is  ambiguous,  and  that  it  has  a  special 
meaning  when  we  apply  it  to  things  in  the  real  world.  Then  we 


Sensations  and  "  Things  "  121 

straightway  forget  what  that  meaning  is,  and  insist  that  things  in 
the  real  world  must  have  existence,  not  in  the  second  sense,  but 
in  the  first,  if  they  are  to  have  any  existence  at  all.  Perhaps,  in  a 
fit  of  generosity,  we  allow  them  that  dubious  sort  of  existence  we 
call  potential,  which  is  not  existence,  but  a  prophecy  of  such.  No 
wonder  the  real  world  conies  to  seem  unreal  to  those  who  treat  it 
in  this  fashion.  We  have  returned  from  the  thing  symbolized  to 
the  symbol,  and  reassumed  the  limitations  we  had  transcended  by 
abstraction.  The  real  world  is  then  regarded,  either  as  having  no 
existence  save  as  it  breaks  out  sporadically  in  this  or  that  conscious- 
ness, like  a  passing  cutaneous  eruption,  or  as  having  an  existence 
that  only  a  philosopher  can  distinguish  from  actual  non-existence, 
the  existence  called  potential. 

In  any  case  the  real  world  loses.  It  must  lose,  because  when 
we  fall  into  this  confusion,  we  deny  distinctions  which  exist  and 
have  importance  both  in  common  thought  and  in  science.  We 
all  recognize  that  it  is  one  thing  to  think  of  this  man  or  that 
as  perceiving  the  real  world,  and  another  thing  to  think  of  the 
real  world  itself.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  man  who  remains 
upon  the  plane  of  the  common  understanding  misconceives  this 
distinction,  when  he  undertakes  to  make  it  clear  to  himself.  He 
regards  the  real  world  as  a  something  quite  outside  of  conscious- 
ness, not  composed  of  consciousness-elements,  and  cut  off  com- 
pletely from  direct  inspection.  But  although  he  misconceives 
the  distinction,  he  is  quite  right  in  drawing  it,  and  insisting  upon 
its  importance.  It  is  one  of  no  little  moment  both  to  common 
thought  and  to  science. 

Moreover,  we  not  only  distinguish  between  the  real  world 
and  this  or  that  perception  of  it,  but  we  all  believe  that  the  real 
world  exists  actually  even  when  we  do  not  happen  to  perceive 
it,  and  that  it  stretches  beyond  the  limits  of  our  perception.  We 
believe  that  the  table  in  the  next  room  really  exists.  We  do 
not  think  of  it  as  existing  potentially,  as  a  mere  prophecy  or 
promise  of  existence.  We  believe  that  it  exists  now.  And  in 
this  we  are  right.  It  exists  now  in  the  only  sense  of  the  word 
"  exist  "  applicable  to  real  things  as  real.  It  has  its  place  in  the 
system  of  experiences  which  make  up  the  real  world. 

But  how  can  anything  have  its  place  in  a  system  of  expe- 
riences, when  it  is  not  actually  experienced?  How  can  it  exist 
actually  when  it  is  not  intuitively  present  in  any  consciousness  ? 


122  The  External  World 

The  objection  seems  plausible,  but  it  is  the  identical  objection 
that  I  have  been  combating  all  along.  The  objection  assumes 
that  the  word  "  existence "  has  but  one  meaning,  and  that  if 
things  do  not  exist  in  the  first  sense  of  the  word  they  do  not 
exist  at  all.  And  yet  it  is  quite  clear,  to  one  who  will  examine 
the  actual  uses  of  the  word,  that  it  is  constantly  used  in  a  double 
sense.  The  distinction  recognized  by  the  metaphysician  is  not  his 
own  creation.  He  merely  makes  explicit  what  is  implicit  in  the 
thought  of  others.  He  endeavors  to  point  out  what  "real 
existence  "  must  mean,  dimly  and  vaguely,  even  to  the  man  who, 
unaccustomed  to  reflective  analysis,  is  at  first  inclined  to  repudi- 
ate with  energy  his  explanation  of  its  meaning.  A  thing  can 
have  its  place  in  a  system  of  experiences  without  on  that  ac- 
count existing  intuitively  in  consciousness.  One  who  denies  this 
wipes  out  the  distinction  between  symbol  and  that  which  is 
symbolized ;  he  denies  the  possibility  of  symbolic  knowledge  in 
toto.  Surely  it  is  a  rash  man  who  will  undertake  to  do  this. 

It  is  worth  while  to  delay  for  a  moment  over  the  distinction 
between  actual  existence  and  potential.  It  has  been  stated  that  it 
is  not  identical  with  the  distinction  between  the  intuitive  existence 
in  consciousness  of  the  percept  and  the  real  existence  of  those 
experiences  which  we  conceive  as  constituting  the  world  of  things. 
This  becomes  clear  when  we  realize  that  we  may  distinguish  between 
actual  and  potential  existence  within  either  of  these  classes.  We 
may  call  experiences  now  intuitively  present  in  consciousness 
actual ;  and  we  may  call  those  which  we  expect  to  be  thus  con- 
scious of,  or  may  be  thus  conscious  of,  potential.  Similarly,  we 
may  call  an  unperceived  oak  tree  actually  existent,  and  may  call 
the  oak  tree  which  will  spring  from  an  actual  acorn,  potentially 
existent.  In  both  instances,  potential  existence  is  a  prophecy 
or  promise  of  actuality.  It  is  in  each  case,  be  it  remarked,  a 
prophecy  of  actuality  of  the  appropriate  kind  :  here,  a  promise  of 
a  perception ;  there,  a  promise  of  the  real  existence  appropriate  to 
those  things  that  belong  to  the  real  world.  It  is  a  manifest  injus- 
tice to  real  things  as  a  whole  to  ascribe  to  them  only  a  potential 
existence,  when  in  fact  some  of  them  exist  actually,  and  those  of 
them  which  exist  potentially  are  not  regarded  as  existing  now  at 
all.  Such  a  use  of  language  gratuitously  discredits  real  things 
and  makes  them  seem  unreal. 

It  should   be  remarked,  furthermore  —  and  this  consideration 


Sensations  and  "Things"  123 

should  make,  if  possible,  still  clearer  the  justice  of  the  position 
taken  just  above — it  should  be  remarked,  that  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  the  same  experience  from  having  existence  in  both  the 
first  and  the  second  senses  of  the  word  at  the  same  time.  Certain 
of  the  elements  of  the  table  now  before  me  exist  in  the  first  sense 
of  the  word.  That  is  to  say,  I  am  now  intuitively  conscious  of 
them.  But  I  recognize  this  experience  as  a  percept,  and  I  see 
that  the  sensational  elements  which  it  contains  belong  to  the  real 
world.  In  other  words,  the  table  exists  in  sense  second,  as  well 
as  in  sense  first.  It  has  both  kinds  of  actuality  at  once,  and  is 
in  no  sense  potential.  But  an  experience  need  not  have  both 
kinds  of  actuality  to  be  really  existent.  The  table  in  the  other 
room,  the  one  which  I  do  not  perceive,  exists  at  this  moment  just 
as  really  as  the  one  before  me.  The  difference  between  that 
table  and  this  is  a  significant  difference  when  we  are  dealing  with 
perceptions ;  it  is,  however,  a  difference  abstracted  from  when  we 
are  concerned  with  real  things.  It  as  little  enters  into  the  ques- 
tion of  their  reality  as  does  the  size  of  a  triangle  into  the  question 
of  the  relations  between  the  angles  and  its  sides. 

It  will  have  been  observed  that  the  doctrine  of  the  nature  of 
the  external  world  set  forth  in  the  last  chapter  and  in  this  one 
suggests  the  doctrine  which  has  been  held  with  various  modifica- 
tions by  three  philosophers  very  familiar  to  English  readers,  the 
philosophers  Berkeley,  Hume,  and  Stuart  Mill.  At  the  same  time 
it  will  have  been  recognized  by  those  who  read  with  discrimination 
the  writings  of  these  men,  that  all  three  of  them  fall  into  what  has 
been  above  treated  as  an  error. 

They  all  hold  more  or  less  to  the  traditional  psychological 
standpoint  even  while  they  criticise  it ;  and,  hence,  the  real  world, 
when  it  has  passed  through  their  hands,  does  not  seem  to  be  such  a 
very  real  world  after  all.  The  psychologist  distinguishes  between 
his  consciousness  of  the  real  world  and  a  real  world  which  he 
assumes  to  lie  beyond  it.  The  representative  of  such  a  world  in 
his  consciousness  he  regards  as  a  limited  thing,  which  very  imper- 
fectly mirrors  the  world  as  it  really  is.  Now,  the  philosopher  who 
sees  the  inconsistency  of  the  psychologist's  position,  the  assumption 
of  a  world  beyond  our  experience  and  quite  cut  off  from  it,  and  who 
is  moved  by  this  insight  to  reject  such  a  world,  seems  to  be  robbed 
of  his  real  world  altogether  unless  he  can  find  somewhere  and  some- 
how in  experience  a  real  world  which  may  take  the  place  of  the  one 


124  The  External  World 

which  has  been  lost.  If  he  simply  throws  the  external  world  away 
as  a  gratuitous  fiction,  and  draws  no  distinction  between  his  ideas 
of  things  and  the  things  themselves,  he  appears  to  be  walking  in  a 
vain  show,  to  be  fed  by  mere  appearances,  to  be  unable  to  reach 
reality  at  all. 

No  wonder  that  his  words  excite  opposition  and  sometimes  even 
irritation.  When  he  attempts  to  persuade  us  of  the  truth  of  his 
doctrine,  we  feel  that  he  is  a  would-be  robber.  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  recognizing  a  distinction  between  ideas  and  things,  and 
even  when  we  cannot  follow  with  complete  comprehension  the 
turns  of  a  writer's  thought,  we  refuse  to  have  him  palm  off  upon 
us  as  a  satisfactory  conclusion  to  his  reflections  upon  the  world,  the 
statement  that  matter  does  not  exist,  or  that  the  whole  system  of 
things  is  nothing  but  a  concatenation  of  ideas.  Of  course,  the 
popular  objection  to  a  philosopher's  positions  may,  in  some  cases, 
be  due  to  a  mere  misunderstanding  of  his  words,  or  to  a  start  of 
surprise  at  the  novelty  of  his  statements.  But  in  other  cases  it 
may  be  justified.  It  may  be  that,  in  his  endeavor  to  arrive  at  a 
clearer  comprehension  of  things,  the  philosopher  has  been  misled 
into  denying  distinctions  which  really  obtain  and  are  of  significance 
in  common  thought  and  in  science. 

This  charge  may  not  unjustly  be  brought  against  the  three  phi- 
losophers above  mentioned.  That  the  real  world  does  not  seem  very 
real  to  one  who  reads  them  is  not  entirely  due  to  misconception  on 
the  part  of  the  reader.  They  do  overlook  distinctions  which  are  of  no 
slight  importance,  and  the  world  they  offer  us  is  not  the  real  world 
to  which  we  are  accustomed,  merely  set  in  a  clear  light.  It  is 
something  else,  which  we  feel  cannot  properly  be  made  to  take  its 
place. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  "  Principles  of  Human  Knowl- 
edge "  cannot  fall  into  the  vulgar  error  of  believing  that  the 
Berkeleyan  Idealism  wholly  obliterates  the  distinction  between 
real  things  and  imaginary.  It  is  true  that  Berkeley  calls  all  alike 
"•  ideas,"  and  the  use  of  this  word  is  in  itself  enough  to  inspire 
distrust  in  a  majority  of  those  who  follow  his  discussions ;  but  he 
states  explicitly  that,  by  what  he  calls  "ideas  of  sense,"  he  means 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  things  —  things  as  they  enter  into  our 
experience,  things  perceived.  He  is  careful  to  point  out  that  his 
polemic  against  a  material  world  is  a  polemic  against  something 
which  never  has  been  perceived  by  any  one,  and  which  cannot  be 


Sensations  and  "Things"  125 

proved  to  exist  by  any  legitimate  inference  from  what  is  experi- 
enced. It  is,  in  substance,  a  polemic  against  the  inconsistent  real 
world  of  the  psychologist  who  remains  upon  the  psychological 
standpoint,  and  accepts  it  as  final  —  an  argument  to  show  that  the 
man  in  the  cell :  must  really  have  some  ground  for  asserting  that 
things  exist,  and  must  mean  something  when  he  speaks  of  the  man- 
ner of  their  existence,  or  his  assertions  will  become  mere  gibberish. 

Thus  the  world  which  Berkeley  means  to  reject  is  a  hypotheti- 
cal world,  beyond  consciousness  in  the  broad  sense  of  that  word. 
He  has  110  intention  of  denying  the  existence  of  real  things  as 
they  are  revealed  in  our  experience ;  indeed,  he  points  out  with 
admirable  clearness  the  criterion  by  which  real  things  are  to  be 
recognized  as  such.  He  emphasizes,  as  he  should,  the  truth  that 
the  orderly  character  of  certain  of  our  experiences  puts  them  into 
a  class  by  themselves,  and  he  calls  the  regular  ways  in  which  they 
are  connected  together  and  precede  and  follow  one  another  "  laws 
of  nature."  Moreover,  notwithstanding  his  repeated  denials  that 
it  is  possible  for  things  to  exist  unperceived,  he  recognizes  with 
some  clearness  the  fact  that  the  word  "  exist  "  is  used  in  two  senses, 
and  remarks  the  fact  that,  in  one  of  these  senses,  it  is  applicable  to 
things  unperceived  :  "  The  table  I  write  on  I  say  exists  ;  that  is,  I 
see  and  feel  it ;  and  if  I  were  out  of  my  study  I  should  say  it 
existed  —  meaning  thereby  that  if  I  was  in  my  study  I  might  per- 
ceive it,  or  that  some  other  spirit  actually  does  perceive  it."  2 

Here  we  have  the  materials  for  a  satisfactory  correction, 
through  reflective  analysis,  of  the  inconsistency  which  attaches  to 
the  psychological  doctrine  of  ideas  and  things  —  we  have  a  recog- 
nition of  the  fact  that  the  attempt  to  transcend  consciousness,  in 
the  broad  sense  of  that  word,  is  futile,  and  results  in  meaningless 
statements ;  of  the  fact  that,  within  consciousness,  we  can  find  a 
world  of  things ;  and  of  the  fact  that  we  can  distinguish  between 
the  presence  in  consciousness  of  a  perception  and  the  existence  of 
a  thing.  We  have  here,  I  say,  the  materials  for  a  satisfactory 
restatement,  from  the  point  of  view  of  metaphysics,  of  the  psycho- 
logical position.  It  is,  however,  manifest  that  Berkeley  was  not 
himself  able  to  use  these  materials  as  he  might  have  done.  The 
distinctions  he  draws  are  not  always  clear  to  him,  and  he  is  conse- 
quently more  or  less  inconsistent.  He  could  not  get  far  enough 

1  See  Chapter  II. 

2  "A  Treatise  concerning  the  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  §  3. 


126  The  External  World 

away  from  the  psychological  standpoint  to  criticise  it  in  a  thorough- 
going way.  That  he  never  completely  left  it  is  evident  from  the 
following :  — 

Although  he  explains  that  by  ideas  of  sense  he  means  things, 
he  is  unable  wholly  to  free  himself  from  the  usual  psychological 
suggestions  of  the  word  "idea."  Men  commonly  think  of  their 
ideas  as  in,  or  in  some  obscure  way  connected  with,  their  heads ; 
as  being  without  extension ;  as  forming  no  part  of  the  system  of 
material  things ;  and  as  influencing  external  things,  if  at  all,  only 
indirectly,  and  through  motions  that  they  may  set  up  in  the  human 
body.  They  are  felt  to  be  made  of  more  unsubstantial  stuff  than 
enters  into  the  composition  of  material  objects.  Now  Berkeley 
treats  external  things,  after  calling  them  ideas  of  sense,  somewhat 
as  other  persons  treat  ideas  in  general.  That  relation  between 
occurrences  in  the  external  world  which  we  are  accustomed  to  rec- 
ognize as  that  of  cause  and  effect,  he  regards  as  that  of  sign  and 
thing  signified.  The  autumn  wind  blows,  and  the  dry  leaf  trem- 
bles and  falls.  To  Berkeley  the  passing  of  the  wind  is  not  the 
cause  of  the  fall  of  the  leaf.  It  is  but  a  sign  of  that  occurrence, 
an  indication  that  it  is  about  to  take  place.  The  wind  does  noth- 
ing at  all.  "  All  our  ideas,  sensations,  notions,  or  the  things  which 
we  perceive,  by  whatsoever  names  they  may  be  distinguished,  are," 
he  writes,  "  visibly  inactive  —  there  is  nothing  of  power  or  agency 
included  in  them.  So  that  one  idea  or  object  of  thought  cannot 
produce  or  make  any  alteration  in  another." J  Where  did  our 
philosopher  get  such  a  notion  of  the  passivity  of  ideas  ?  Evidently 
from  the  common  meaning  of  the  word,  the  meaning  which  sharply 
distinguishes  between  things  and  the  ideas  of  things,  relegating 
them  to  two  distinct  classes,  in  only  one  of  which  there  obtain 
relations  of  physical  causation.  Do  we  not  all  know  very  well 
that  the  idea  of  a  hammer  cannot  really  drive  the  idea  of  a  nail 
into  the  idea  of  a  wall  ?  As  well  expect  the  shadow  of  a  dog  to 
rend  with  shadowy  fangs  the  shadow  of  a  hare. 

Various  passages  might  be  cited  to  show  that  when  Berkele}* 
discusses  real  things,  he  is  unable  to  strip  off  the  usual  associa- 
tions which  cluster  around  the  word  "idea."  It  will  be  enough  to 
refer  to  one  more,  —  the  one  which  contains  the  amusing  sugges- 
tion, brought  forward  in  all  seriousness  by  this  earnest  soul,  that 
the  heathen  world  might  be  converted  from  idolatry  by  the  appli- 
1  "A  Treatise  concerning  the  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  §  25. 


Sensations  and  "  Things  "  127 

cation  of  the  drastic  remedy  of  universal  imraaterialism.  It  reads 
thus :  "  Did  men  but  consider  that  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  and 
every  other  object  of  the  senses  are  only  so  many  sensations  in 
their  minds,  which  have  no  other  existence  but  barely  being  per- 
ceived, doubtless  they  would  never  fall  down  and  worship  their 
own  ideas,  but  rather  address  their  homage  to  that  Eternal,  In- 
visible Mind  which  produces  and  sustains  all  things."  1  But  why 
should  a  pagan  have  a  lower  opinion  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  when 
he  discovers  them  to  be  ideas?  Is  it  not  admitted  that  they  are 
ideas  of  sense?  Are  not  ideas  of  sense  things  for  the  Berkeleyan? 
To  this,  one  has  to  answer  that  they  are  and  they  are  not.  They 
are  things  in  bad  company,  birds  of  a  feather  with  ordinary 
"ideas,"  tarred  with  the  same  stick  and  partaking  of  the  same 
reproach. 

Again,  although  it  is  plain  from  his  attempt  to  make  clear  what  is 
meant  by  the  existence  of  his  table,  and  from  other  passages,2  that 
Berkeley  recognized  the  double  sense  of  the  word  "  exist"  ;  yet  it  is 
equally  plain  that  he  had  no  very  distinct  conception  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  senses  in  which  the  word  is  used.  His  phrase- 
ology, even  when  he  recognizes  the  distinction,  shows  that  he  does 
real  existence  the  injustice  of  confounding  it  with  a  possibility  of 
perception  :  "  The  table  I  write  on  I  say  exists,  —  that  is,  I  see  and 
feel  it ;  and  if  I  were  out  of  my  study,  I  should  say  it  existed  — 
meaning  thereby  that  if  I  was  in  my  study,  I  might  perceive  it,  or 
that  some  other  spirit  actually  does  perceive  it."  But  existence 
as  a  possible  perception,  potential  existence,  seems  to  be  such  a 
mere  shadow  or  semblance  of  existence,  that  Berkeley  finds  it 
impossible  to  rest  in  it,  and  is  forced  to  conclude  that,  in  the  last 
analysis,  there  can  be  but  one  kind  of  existence  after  all. 

This  comes  out  clearly  in  his  attempt  to  answer  the  objection 
that,  according  to  his  principles,  the  objects  we  .perceive  by  the 
senses  must  be  annihilated  and  re-created  at  every  moment,  since 
these  objects  are  our  perceptions,  and  our  perceptions  are  not  con- 
tinuous but  are  intermittent.  He  denies  that  the  doctrine  of  a 
continual  annihilation  and  re-creation  of  things  can  be  attributed 
to  him.  He  has  not  maintained  that  things,  to  have  existence, 
must  be  perceived  by  a  particular  mind.  Things  may  be  said  to 
exist  so  long  as  they  exist  in  any  mind  whatever.  Our  ideas  of 

1  "  A  Treatise  concerning  the  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  §  94. 

2  See  the  ':  Third  Dialogue  between  Hylas  and  Philonous." 


128  The  External  World 

sense,  i.e.  real  things,  must  have  a  continuous  existence  some- 
where. When  not  present  to  my  mind,  I  may  infer  that  they 
have  existence  in  a  Divine  Mind,  in  which,  as  in  a  cupboard,  ideas 
are  preserved  during  the  intervals  of  their  existence  in  finite 
minds  :  "  To  me  it  is  evident,  for  the  reasons  you  allow  of,  that 
sensible  things  cannot  exist  otherwise  than  in  a  mind  or  spirit. 
Whence  I  conclude,  not  that  they  have  no  real  existence,  but  that, 
seeing  they  depend  not  on  my  thought,  and  have  an  existence  dis- 
tinct from  being  perceived  by  me,  there  must  be  some  other  Mind 
wherein  they  exist.  As  sure,  therefore,  as  the  sensible  world  really 
exists,  so  sure  is  there  an  infinite  omnipresent  Spirit  who  contains 
and  supports  it." J 

This  theistic  argument  has  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  carried 
conviction  to  the  mind  of  any  one.  It  is  felt  to  be  fantastic.  The 
error  upon  which  it  rests  is  manifest.  In  it  Berkeley  loses  again 
the  distinction  which  he  has  somewhat  vaguely  recognized  be- 
tween the  two  senses  of  the  word  "  exist,"  and  feels  impelled  to 
maintain  that  whatever  exists  must  have  an  intuitive  existence  in 
consciousness.  At  the  same  time,  he  assumes  it  to  be  self-evident 
that  real  things  have  a  continuous  existence  —  an  existence  not  to 
be  summed  up  in  the  sporadic  glimpses  of  things  given  in  our  per- 
ceptions. In  this  he  is  falling  back,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  upon 
the  distinction,  recognized  implicitly  or  explicitly  by  us  all,  be- 
tween real  things  and  our  perceptions  of  them.  But  he  is  trying 
to  turn  a  real  thing  into  a  permanent  perception,  and  he  sees  no 
better  way  of  doing  this  than  by  piecing  out  the  deficiencies  of  one 
consciousness  with  patches  taken  from  another.  Real  things  made 
up  in  this  extraordinary  fashion  are  not  worthy  to  be  called  real 
things,  and  they  cannot  get  themselves  recognized  as  such. 

From  the  foregoing  it  is  clear  that  Berkeley  has  said  quite 
enough  to  justify  the  suspicion  with  which  his  doctrine  has  been 
regarded.  He  has  taken  away  one  real  world,  and  he  has  not 
given  us  another  in  its  place.  He  has  substituted  a  misunder- 
standing for  a  misunderstanding,  and  many  feel  that  the  last  state 
of  the  man  whom  he  has  undertaken  to  reform  is  worse  than  the 
first.  Yet  he  comes,  as  we  have  seen,  near  to  the  truth.  He  fur- 
nishes the  materials  for  a  critical  restatement  of  the  psychological 
doctrine  of  knowledge  and  the  real  world.  He  does  not  succeed 
in  making  the  restatement. 
1  "Sf-cond  Dialogue  between  Hylas  and  Philonous"  ;  see  also  "Principles,"  §  48. 


Sensations  and  "Things"  129 

We  may  criticise  Berkeley's  acute  successor  Hume  somewhat 
as  we  have  criticised  Berkeley.  Hume,  too,  fails  to  distinguish 
as  he  should  between  the  two  senses  of  the  word  "  exist,"  and  it  is, 
hence,  impossible  for  him  to  do  justice  to  the  real  world.  He 
occupies  the  psychological  standpoint  even  while  he  finds  fault 
with  it. 

But  the  error  of  the  two  men  is  the  same  with  a  difference, 
and  the  difference  is  a  characteristic  one.  Berkeley  dimly  recog- 
nizes that  there  are  two  ways  in  which  things  can  exist ;  he  does 
not  fully  comprehend  the  distinction  he  has  drawn,  and,  after 
making  it,  he  obliterates  it  by  trying  to  turn  the  continuous  exist- 
ence of  real  things  into  an  uninterrupted  perception.  But  it 
should  be  remarked  that  he  never  doubts  the  continuous  existence 
of  real  things,  however  oddly  he  explains  it,  and  in  this  he  is  at 
one  with  common  sense  and  with  science.  Hume  follows  the  lead 
of  his  own  reasonings  gayly ;  he  is  not  easily  shocked  himself,  and 
he  appears  to  enjoy  startling  his  reader.  Instead  of  going  with 
Berkeley  to  the  end  of  the  road,  he  makes  a  sharp  turn  and  con- 
cludes that,  although  Nature  compels  us  to  believe  in  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  real  things  in  the  intervals  of  our  perception 
of  them,  yet  this  belief  can  be  in  no  way  justified  before  the  bar  of 
the  reason.  He  has  no  difficulty  in  showing  that  our  perceptions 
themselves  are  intermittent,  and  that  it  is  only  through  a  miscon- 
ception that  we  can  attribute  to  them  a  continued  existence.  And 
he  thinks  he  finds  it  possible  to  prove  that  real  things  cannot  for 
any  good  reason  be  assumed  to  have  an  existence  distinct  from  our 
perceptions.  It  seems  to  follow  that  real  things  can  have  no  ex- 
istence other  than  the  interrupted  existence  which  manifestly 
belongs  to  our  perceptions.1 

In  his  attempt  to  prove  that  real  things  have  no  existence 
distinct  from  perception  Hume  is  the  pupil  of  Berkeley,  and  he 
vigorously  attacks  the  psychological  doctrine  of  representative 
perception.  But  it  should  not  be  overlooked  that  the  statement 
that  the  objects  of  our  perceptions  are  not  distinct  from  our  per- 
ceptions themselves  is  an  ambiguous  one.  It  may  be  true  or  false, 
according  to  the  sense  in  which  it  is  understood.  It  is  quite  possi- 
ble to  deny,  as  we  have  seen,  that  my  perception  of  the  table  and 
the  real  table  stand  over  against  one  another  as  the  psychological 
doctrine  would  have  us  believe,  and  yet  to  make  a  distinction 
1  "Treatise  of  Human  Nature,"  Part  IV,  §  2. 


130  The  External  World 

between  them.  Hume  does  not  recognize  the  fact  that  an  expe- 
rience looked  at  in  two  different  ways,  an  experience  regarded  as 
standing  now  in  this  connection  and  now  in  that,  may  acquire  a 
right  to  two  names,  and  may  justly  be  made  the  subject  of  widely 
diverse  judgments.  The  reader  who  has  followed  the  analyses  of 
the  preceding  chapters  has  seen,  I  hope,  in  what  sense  perceptions 
are  identical  with  real  things  and  in  what  sense  they  are  not.  If 
no  distinction  whatever  could  be  made  between  the  two,  then,  of 
course,  nothing  whatever  could  be  predicated  of  real  things  that 
could  not  be  predicated  of  perceptions,  and  Hume  would  be  quite 
right  in  denying  to  the  former  any  sort  of  existence  not  attributable 
to  the  latter.  This  is  what  he  actually  does.  Since  he  cannot  see 
that  the  same  experience  may  be  looked  at  in  two  ways,  he  cannot 
recognize  the  double  sense  of  the  word  "exist." 

Hume  cannot  be  accused  of  obliterating  the  distinction  between 
sense-experiences  and  the  copies  of  these  in  memory  and  imagina- 
tion. It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  that  when  he  is  explicitly 
discussing  the  distinction  between  "  impressions "  and  "  ideas," 
he  overlooks  Berkeley's  most  important  criterion  for  singling  out 
real  things  from  the  other  elements  in  our  experience.  "  Impres- 
sions "  are  made  to  differ  from  "  ideas  "  only  in  that  they  are  more 
lively  and  forceful.1  And  since,  as  we  have  seen,  the  reality  of 
real  things,  their  real  existence,  is  but  the  fact  of  their  having  a 
place  in  the  orderly  system  of  our  experiences,  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  Hume,  more  or  less  slighting  this  fact,  should  sin  more  deeply 
than  Berkeley  in  what  he  says  of  the  external  world.  Berkeley 
confuses  perceptions  and  real  things,  but  he  nevertheless  holds  on 
to  real  things  with  a  good  deal  of  energy.  His  sense-ideas  usually 
remain  to  him  things  ;  and  he  insists  that  his  doctrine  does  not 
lead  him  far  away  from  the  common  opinion  of  mankind.  But  the 
real  world  of  things  which  Berkeley  finds  in  consciousness  shrivels 
in  the  hands  of  Hume  into  a  world  of  mere  perceptions.  He 
impresses  his  reader  as  assuming  throughout,  as  does  the  man  who 
remains  upon  the  psychological  standpoint,  that  a  real  world,  if  it 
is  to  be  found  at  all,  must  be  found  be}rond  consciousness  ;  that  the 
stuff  of  which  "  impressions  "  are  made  cannot  possibly  enter  into 
its  composition.  He  remains,  in  fact,  a  psychologist,  and  yet  he 
sees  clearly  that  the  external  world  of  the  psychologist  will  not  do 

1  "  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,"  Book  I,  Part  I,  §  1  ;  and  "An  Enquiry  concern- 
ing the  Human  Understanding,"  §  2. 


Sensations  and  "  Things  "  131 

at  all  for  the  philosopher.  Hence  he  throws  it  away,  and  becomes 
a  psychologist  bereft.  He  is  able  to  bear  his  bereavement  philo- 
sophically, but  it  has  caused  much  annoyance  to  those  to  whom  his 
reasonings  have  seemed  unanswerable. 

Mill  goes  back  to  Berkeley,  and  takes  up  again  his  distinction 
between  the  two  senses  of  the  word  "  exist."  But,  instead  of 
correcting  the  error  into  which  Berkeley  falls,  he,  too,  concludes 
that  the  existence  of  things  unperceived  must  be  a  merely  poten- 
tial one.  Real  things  are  to  him  no  more  than  "permanent  possi- 
bilities of  sensation."  We  have  seen  that  it  is  doing  real  things 
an  injustice  to  confound  them  with  possibilities  of  any  sort,  and 
also  that  this  reference  to  sensation  indicates  an  incomplete  ab- 
straction. The  admirable  clearness  with  which  he  develops  his 
doctrine  makes  it  unmistakably  plain  that  Mill  cannot  get  away 
from  the  perception  of  real  things,  and  consider  merely  the  real 
things  themselves.1 

1  See  his  chapter  entitled,  "  The  Psychological  Theory  of  the  Belief  in  an  Ex- 
ternal World,"  "Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy." 


CHAPTER   VIII 
THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN   APPEARANCE    AND  REALITY 

FROM  what  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  chapters,  does  it  not 
seem  to  follow  that  we  must  regard  all  sensations,  of  whatever 
description,  as  having  a  place  in  the  real  world  of  things  ?  What 
criterion  of  sensation  is  there  save  that  which  has  been  pointed 
out  — a  criterion  which  makes  the  very  being  of  a  sensation,  as  a 
sensation,  to  consist  in  the  fact  that  it  has  a  place  in  that  fixed 
order  of  experiences  that  we  call  the  real  world  ? 

The  general  reference  of  all  sensations  to  a  place  in  nature 
appears  to  be,  moreover,  not  merely  in  harmony  with  the  criterion 
of  sensation  which  has  been  insisted  upon,  but  also  in  harmony 
with  the  natural  impulse  of  the  plain  man,  who  does  not,  unless 
forced  to  do  so,  discriminate  between  sensations  of  various  classes, 
allowing  to  some  a  reality  denied  to  others.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
it  is  no  less  in  harmony  with  the  impulse  of  the  man  of  science, 
when  he  is  not  specifically  occupied  with  scientific  theory,  but  is 
living  the  life  common  to  us  all  in  familiar  intercourse  with  the 
real  things  that  are  perceived  to  surround  him  in  his  workaday 
world. 

He  perceives  the  table  before  him  to  be  extended,  resisting, 
colored ;  the  lamp  which  he  pushes  away  from  him  emits  a  sound ; 
the  rose  in  the  glass  of  water  at  his  elbow  smells  sweet ;  the 
swollen  finger  which  he  presses  against  his  pen  has  a  pain  in  it. 
The  real  world  of  things  which  he  perceives  about  him  is  not 
made  up  of  sensational  elements  of  one  or  two  classes  exclusively. 
It  contains  things  extended  and  resisting;  but  these  things  are 
also  colored  and  sonorous,  and  some  of  them  may  tingle  with  pain. 
What  considerations  can  induce  a  man  to  conceive  that  real  things, 
as  they  are,  lack  some  of  the  properties  which  they  seem  to  reveal 
themselves  as  possessing?  Why  should  a  man  give  to  certain 
sensations  a  preference  over  others,  and,  constructing  for  himself 
a  paler  copy  of  the  rich  and  varied  world  of  his  actual  experiences, 

132 


Distinction  bettveen  Appearance  and  Reality        13  8 

declare  this  to  be  the  real  world  from  which  the  veil  of  appearance 
has  been  torn  away  ? 

There  is  here,  it  should  be  observed,  no  question  of  a  distinction 
between  sensations  and  experiences  of  the  class  called  imaginary. 
The  color  seen,  the  sound  heard,  the  pain  felt,  are  really  seen, 
heard,  and  felt.  They  are  not  merely  imagined.  They  are  sen- 
sations, and  in  so  far  they  belong  to  the  same  order  as  sensations 
of  touch  and  movement,  the  ones  commonly  left  to  the  real  world 
when  it  has  been  robbed  of  all  others.  On  what  pretence  shall 
they  be  excluded  from  the  real  world  to  which  they  certainly  seem 
to  belong?  That  men  do  come  to  discriminate  between  different 
classes  of  sensational  experiences,  allowing  to  some  a  place  in  the 
world  of  real  things  and  denying  such  a  place  to  others,  is  a  fact 
with  which  the  reader  is,  of  course,  familiar.  In  this  chapter  I 
shall  try  to  show  what  has  led  to  the  emergence  of  this  distinction, 
and  shall  exhibit  the  form  that  it  has  taken  in  the  hands  of  the 
common-sense  philosopher  and  of  the  man  of  science. 

The  question  of  the  reality  of  what  is  given  in  perception  was 
recognized  to  be  a  problem  calling  for  solution  very  early  in  the 
history  of  reflective  thought.  It  was  discovered  that  there  must 
be  a  distinction  between  things  as  they  appear  and  things  as  they 
really  are.  Such  men  as  Anaxagoras  and  Democritus  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  senses  are  imperfect  instruments,  and  are 
by  themselves  unable  to  discern  the  true  nature  of  the  elements 
that  enter  into  the  structure  of  the  real  world  of  things.  This 
function,  they  thought,  can  be  performed  only  by  the  reason,  which 
has  the  power  of  passing  be}rond  the  data  furnished  by  sense,  and 
of  grasping  the  reality  that  lies  behind  the  veil. 

It  seems  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that,  just  as  soon  as  philos- 
ophy grew  to  be  something  more  than  a  crude  attempt  at  laying 
the  foundations  of  physical  science,  its  great  problem  was  felt  to 
be  the  nearer  definition  of  the  reality  which  underlies  the  play  of 
appearances  and  which  is  not  distinguished  from  appearances  by 
the  unreflective.  And  as  reflection  upon  this  problem  made  it 
evident  that  it  is  by  no  means  easy  of  solution,  there  were,  as  we 
might  expect,  those  who  stood  ready  to  deny  either  that  there  was 
such  a  problem,  or  that  it  was  one  for  which  any  conceivable 
solution  could  be  found.  Thus  Protagoras  and  Pyrrho,  finding 
it  impossible  to  retain  the  naive  confidence  in  the  power  of  the 
reason  to  transcend  the  mere  appearance,  and  to  rest  in  a  reality 


134  The  External  World 

more  satisfying,  concluded  that  no  truth — no  such  truth,  at  least, 
as  has  been  the  goal  of  the  endeavors  of  earnest  men  from  the 
dawn  of  reflective  thought  to  the  present  day  —  is  attainable  by 
man.  Of  these  worthies,  the  one  seems  to  have  maintained  that 
every  appearance  is  as  real  as  every  other ;  while  the  other  held 
that,  although  reality  and  appearance  may  theoretically  be  dis- 
tinguished, yet  the  mind  is  incapable  of  deciding  between  true  and 
false  appearances,  and  will,  hence,  do  well  to  empty  itself  of  all 
opinions  whatever,  to  draw  from  appearances  no  conclusions  of 
any  sort,  and  to  cultivate  a  vacuity  in  comparison  with  which  the 
agnosticism  of  our  day  is  dogmatism  itself. 

Such  a  scepticism  as  this,  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  for  a  sane 
man  to  embrace,  except  in  a  professional  capacity  and  for  purposes 
of  discussion.  It  is  not  difficult  for  us  to  see  that  Protagoras  and 
Pyrrho,  neither  of  whom  was  a  madman,  did  really  draw  between 
appearance  and  reality  the  distinction  of  which  their  doctrine 
would  rob  them.  Protagoras  certainly  recognized,  in  spite  of 
himself,  the  distinction  between  real  and  apparent  truth,  for  he 
conducted  himself  with  propriety  in  the  practical  affairs  in  which 
he  was  involved,  and  he  assumed  in  his  discussions  that  he  had 
truth  to  communicate,  a  truth  in  some  sense  common  to  himself 
and  to  his  listener.  As  for  Pyrrho,  that  ancient  humbug  is  plainly 
betrayed  by  his  gossiping  biographer,  Diogenes  Laertius,  who, 
after  stating  that  Pyrrho's  life  corresponded  to  his  principles  and 
that  he  put  no  credence  in  the  reports  of  his  senses,  goes  on  to 
tell  us  that  he  lived  to  a  very  advanced  age,  and  that  he  never 
acted  imprudently  or  did  anything  without  due  consideration  ! 

The  sweeping  denials  of  Protagoras  and  Pyrrho  do  not  have 
their  source  in  a  clear  perception  of  the  fact  that  there  is  no  differ- 
ence between  appearance  and  reality,  but  may  be  taken  as  an 
expression  of  despair  at  the  difficulty  of  knowing  where  to  draw 
the  line  of  demarcation.  The  helpless  philosopher  throws  the 
handle  after  the  hatchet,  and  denies  what  he  is  powerless  to 
explain.  He  asks  what  is  the  real  color  of  the  neck  of  a  dove, 
and  the  real  weight  of  a  stone.  Shall  he  assume  that  these  are  just 
what  they  at  a  given  moment  seem  to  be  ?  Alas!  the  color  changes 
at  every  instant  as  the  bird  turns  its  head;  and  the  stone  is  found 
to  have  one  weight  in  air  and  another  in  water.  Which  of  the 
series  of  colors  shall  be  regarded  as  the  real  one  ?  Is  the  stone 
really  heavy  and  made  light  by  water,  or  is  it  really  light  and 


Distinction  between  Appearance  and  Reality        135 

made  heavy  by  air  ?  These  ancient  sceptics  had  stumbled  upon 
the  principle  of  relativity,  and  were  routed  by  it  as  many  have 
been  routed  since. 

I  have  said  that  the  plain  man  does  not,  unless  something  forces 
him  to  do  so,  feel  impelled  to  distinguish  between  the  appearance 
of  things  and  the  things  themselves;  and  I  have  also  said  that  even 
the  man  of  science,  when  he  is  dealing  with  the  familiar  things 
just  about  him,  is  not  conscious  of  such  a  distinction.  Appearance 
and  reality  seem  to  be  so  nicely  adjusted  to  each  other  that  the 
distinction  between  them  altogether  slips  out  of  mind.  This  par- 
ticular appearance  —  the  color  of  the  desk  at  which  I  am  writing 
—  seems  to  belong  to  the  reality  if  anything  does,  to  be  an  element 
in  or  an  aspect  of  the  reality  itself,  not  a  mere  appearance  through 
which  something  else  is  known  really  to  exist.  As  long  as  I  con- 
fine my  attention  to  appearances  of  this  sort,  I  feel  little  inclina- 
tion to  think  of  them  as  appearances  at  all.  To  me  my  desk  is 
colored,  my  clock  does  tick,  the  smoke  from  my  cigar  is  fragrant. 
This  that  I  see  is  my  desk,  and  this  that  I  hear  is  my  clock.  In 
such  appearances,  not  through  them,  I  seem  to  grasp  my  reality, 
and  to  grasp  it  just  as  it  is.  But  it  is  not  in  such  appearances 
alone  that  I  live,  and  a  reflection  stung  into  activity  by  appear- 
ances more  or  less  similar  to  these,  but  apparently  less  trustworthy, 
awakens  a  doubt  touching  these  also. 

When  I  turn  and  look  out  of  my  window,  I  see  as  a  faint 
bluish  patch  upon  the  horizon  the  tree  that  I  passed  yesterday  and 
saw  as  a  large  expanse  of  vivid  green.  I  recall  my  past  experi- 
ence of  the  fact  that  the  colors  of  things  vary  with  the  distance 
from  which  the  things  are  seen ;  that  they  do  not  look  the  same  in 
the  morning  and  at  high  noon  ;  that  the  passing  of  a  cloud,  the 
rising  of  a  mist,  may  produce  a  change  sufficiently  marked  even 
while  I  am  gazing  upon  the  landscape. 

It  is  impossible  for  me  not  to  ask  myself  whether  any  one  of 
these  objects  seen  under  varying  aspects  has  a  real  color  of  its 
own,  a  something  which  belongs  to  it  as  its  private  property,  a 
something  independent  of  the  change  of  circumstance  which  causes 
such  a  series  of  changes  in  my  perception.  And  when  I  recall 
also  the  fact  that  objects  which  seem  to  me  to  present  startling 
contrasts  of  color  may  not  appear  to  my  neighbor  to  differ  in  color 
at  all,  I  am  impelled  to  raise  the  question  whether  my  own  eyes 
may  not  be  as  important  a  circumstance  as  any  in  determining 


136  The  External  World 

whether  the  objects  about  me  shall  be  seen  as  of  this  color 
or  that. 

When,  with  all  these  considerations  before  me,  I  look  again  at 
my  desk,  I  am  forced  to  acknowledge  that  the  reality  which  I 
seem  to  see  before  me  has  taken  on  a  somewhat  novel  aspect.  I 
catch  myself  wondering  whether  I  can  produce  evidence  that  the 
desk  really  is  more  like  the  thing  it  seems,  when  seen  at  close 
quarters,  than  like  that  which  it  seems  under  other  circumstances. 
The  particular  experience  which  appeared  to  be  so  indubitable 
and  so  satisfactory  is  seen  to  be  one  of  a  series  which  fade  into 
each  other  by  imperceptible  degrees.  It  obeys  all  the  laws  of  the 
series  to  which  it  belongs,  it  is  in  no  sense  a  thing  apart  and  inde- 
pendent. If  I  regard  —  as  I  undoubtedly  do — certain  of  the 
members  of  the  series  as  mere  appearances,  giving,  it  is  true,  some 
indication  of  the  reality  which  they  represent,  but  in  no  sense  a 
constituent  part  of  it,  by  what  right  shall  I  single  out  this  particu- 
lar member  of  the  series  and  insist  that  in  it  I  grasp  the  reality 
at  first  hand?  How  shall  I  justify  the  assumption  that,  although 
a  tree  at  a  distance  looks  blue,  the  tree  really  is  green,  and  that 
this  desk  at  which  I  write  really  is  the  color  that  it  seems  to  be  ? 
Must  I  not  in  consistency  admit  that  this  visual  experience,  so 
vivid,  so  insistent,  so  seemingly  real,  is  nevertheless  no  true  part 
of  the  real  thing  I  call  my  desk,  but  is  a  mere  appearance,  nay,  a 
delusive  appearance,  since,  in  spite  of  all  my  reflections,  I  find  it 
hard  to  realize,  while  I  look  at  it,  that  this  particular  expanse 
of  color  is  not  actually  before  me,  as  independent  and  as  much 
outside  of  my  body  as  anything  belonging  to  the  desk  can  be  ? 
Perish  the  thought  that  I  should  be  deceived  in  what  seems  so 
clearly  and  so  immediately  known  as  this!  —  and  yet,  how  shall 
I  answer  the  reflections  that  impel  me  along  the  steep  descent 
which  Pyrrho  travelled  before  me  ? 

It  is  plain  that  if  it  is  possible  by  reflection  to  rob  external 
objects  of  their  color,  it  can  be  no  difficult  task  to  relieve  them  of 
some  of  the  other  properties  above  mentioned. 

I  perceive  that  the  sounds  emanating  from  my  clock  are  loud 
or  low  as  I  approach  the  clock  or  recede  from  it.  If  I  stop  my 
ears  with  my  fingers,  they  disappear  altogether.  I  notice  that  as  a 
series  of  sounds  rises  in  pitch,  there  comes  a  point  at  which,  to  me, 
sound  gives  place  to  silence,  while  by  my  neighbor  it  is  still  heard 
as  sound.  Can  I,  in  the  face  of  such  facts  as  these,  continue  to 


Distinction  between  Appearance  and  Reality        137 

believe  that  the  sound  I  now  hear  so  distinctly  coming  from  the 
clock  close  in  front  of  me  is  really  the  external  and  real  thing  it 
seems  to  be  ?  It  is  certainly  my  first  impulse  to  think  so  ;  but 
must  I  not  correct  this  impulse  and  regard  the  sound  heard  as 
merely  an  effect  of  some  sort  upon  my  ears,  an  indication  of  some- 
thing itself  not  heard  at  all  ? 

And  the  same  conclusions  force  themselves  upon  me  when  I 
reflect  upon  my  experiences  of  odors  and  of  tastes.  The  odor  of 
the  rose,  the  taste  of  the  apple,  occasion  all  sorts  of  perplexities  if 
I  insist  upon  regarding  them  as  really  in  the  things  in  which  they 
appear  to  be.  Does  the  rose  still  smell  sweet  when  I  am  suffering 
from  a  cold  in  the  head?  And  is  a  sweet  apple  still  in  itself 
sweet,  when  the  bodily  change  effected  by  an  indigestion  makes  it 
to  me  bitter  and  offensive  ?  As  to  that  wretched  pain  which  throbs 
in  every  part  of  a  swollen  finger,  that  pain  which  seems  so  unmis- 
takably just  where  it  is  and  nowhere  else — this,  too,  it  appears, 
must  range  itself  among  the  things  that  are  not  what  they  seem, 
for  the  psychologist  tells  me  that  the  seat  of  the  pain  is  not  the 
finger,  but  the  brain,  and  he  offers  something  like  proof  for  this 
assertion.  He  points  out  that  the  swollen  finger  is  not  felt  as 
painful  if  the  nerve  that  serves  as  medium  of  communication  with 
the  brain  be  severed  ;  and  then  he  relates  various  puzzling  instances 
of  pains  that  have  been  clearly  felt  as  in  a  finger  or  in  a  toe, 
when  the  previous  amputation  of  the  member  has  put  it  beyond 
all  doubt  that  the  pain  in  question  was  a  lying  appearance,  and 
was  palming  itself  off  for  what  it  could  not  possibly  be. 

When  one  ruminates  upon  all  these  things,  it  is  impossible  not 
to  feel  a  certain  sympathy  with  the  Pyrrhonist.  The  most  familiar 
objects  take  on  an  unfamiliar  aspect.  The  plain  man  to  whom 
such  difficulties  have  been  suggested,  is  no  longer  in  the  enjoyment 
of  his  primitive  simplicity.  He  has  begun  to  recast  his  world,  to 
discriminate  between  appearances,  and  to  reject  some,  which  he 
never  thought  of  doubting  before,  from  the  realm  of  reality.  What- 
ever may  be  the  result  of  his  reflections,  he  is  not  likely  to  assert 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  reality.  That  is  not  done  in  our  day. 
But  he  may  very  well  feel  a  good  deal  of  perplexity  in  the  endeavor 
to  decide  what  he  shall  consider  reality,  and  what  he  shall  refuse  to 
regard  as  such.  It  is  well  to  remark  the  fact  that  even  after  the 
trail  of  the  serpent  of  doubt  1ms  laid  its  blight  upon  every  corner 
of  his  unreflective  paradise,  there  are  times  when  he  has  revulsions 


138  The  External  World 

of  feeling,  and  forgets  that  he  has  eaten  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge.  When  he  gazes  at  the  pen  which  he  holds  in  his 
hand  or  scrutinizes  the  desk  before  him,  he  still  feels  that  these 
particular  appearances  are  real  and  belong  to  his  real  world.  To 
him  these  things  again  are  what  they  appear,  and  his  previous 
reflections  are  forgotten.  To  bring  these  experiences  once  more 
in  doubt,  he  must  recall  what  has  temporarily  passed  from  his 
mind,  and  fall  back  upon  a  wider  experience,  the  elements  of  which 
do  not  seem  to  be  so  completely  in  harmony. 

Perhaps  no  one  has  drawn  the  line  between  appearance  and 
reality  in  a  way  more  satisfactory  to  the  plain  man  who  has 
entered  upon  the  path  of  reflection,  but  has  not  taken  leave  of 
common  sense  and  plunged  headlong  into  the  shadowy  realm  of 
the  metaphysician,  than  has  John  Locke  in  his  immortal  "  Essay." 
We  have  seen  that  even  the  plain  man  distinguishes  between  his 
ideas  and  the  things  they  are  supposed  to  represent.  Upon  this 
distinction  Locke  takes  his  stand,  and  by  its  aid  he  smoothes  away 
the  difficulties  presented  in  the  preceding  paragraphs.  Real  things 
exist  outside  of  us,  and  they  cause  ideas  in  our  minds. 

"  The  notice  we  have  by  our  senses  of  the  existing  of  things 
without  us,  though  it  be  not  altogether  so  certain  as  our  intuitive 
knowledge,  or  the  deductions  of  our  reason,  employed  about  the 
clear  abstract  ideas  of  our  own  minds  ;  yet  it  is  an  assurance  that 
deserves  the  name  of  knowledge.  If  we  persuade  ourselves  that 
our  faculties  act  and  inform  us  right,  concerning  the  existence  of 
those  objects  that  affect  them,  it  cannot  pass  for  an  ill-grounded 
confidence :  for  I  think  nobody  can,  in  earnest,  be  so  sceptical  as 
to  be  uncertain  of  the  existence  of  those  things  which  he  sees  and 
feels.  At  least,  he  that  can  doubt  so  far  (whatever  he  may  have 
with  his  own  thoughts)  will  never  have  any  controversy  with  me  ; 
since  he  can  never  be  sure  that  I  say  anything  contrary  to  his  own 
opinion.  As  to  myself,  I  think  God  has  given  me  assurance 
enough  of  the  existence  of  things  without  me,  since  by  their  differ- 
ent application  I  can  produce  in  myself  both  pleasure  and  pain, 
which  is  one  great  concernment  of  my  present  state.  This  is 
certain,  the  confidence  that  our  faculties  do  not  herein  deceive  us 
is  the  greatest  assurance  we  are  capable  of,  concerning  the  exist- 
ence of  material  things.  For  we  cannot  act  anything  but  by  our 
faculties  ;  nor  talk  of  knowledge  itself,  but  by  the  helps  of  those 
faculties  which  are  fitted  to  apprehend  even  what  knowledge  is. 


Distinction  between  Appearance  and  Reality        139 

But  besides  the  assurance  we  have  from  our  senses  themselves, 
that  they  do  not  err  in  the  information  they  give  us,  of  the  exist- 
ence of  things  without  us,  when  they  are  affected  by  them,  we  are 
farther  confirmed  in  this  assurance  by  other  concurrent  reasons."1 

These  concurrent  reasons  are  as  follows :  Perceptions  must  be 
produced  in  us  by  exterior  causes  affecting  our  senses,  for  those 
who  lack  the  organs  of  a  sense  lack  the  appropriate  sensations. 
The  organs  themselves  do  not  produce  them,  for  then  the  eyes  of 
a  man  in  the  dark  would  produce  colors,  and  his  nose  would  smell 
roses  in  the  winter.  Again,  I  can  recall  and  banish  what  memories 
I  will,  but  when  I  look  with  open  eyes  at  the  sun,  it  is  not  in  my 
power  to  reject  the  ideas  the  sun  causes  in  me.  Between  ideas  in 
the  memory  and  genuine  sensations  there  is  no  little  difference, 
and  the  latter  must  be  referred  to  the  "  brisk  acting  "  of  objects 
without  me,  and  to  nothing  else.  In  the  third  place,  the  sensation 
of  pain  is  one  thing  and  imaginary  pain  another.  It  is  absurd  to 
put  them  upon  the  same  level.  Real  pains  are  caused  by  real 
external  things  disturbing  our  bodies,  and  that  is  why  they  disturb 
us.  Finally,  our  senses  support  one  another's  testimony.  He  that 
sees  a  fire  may  put  his  hand  into  it.  Can  he  longer  doubt  ? 

All  this  is  the  very  quintessence  of  the  philosophy  of  common 
sense.  There  are  external  things  and  there  are  minds ;  and  the 
external  things  affect  the  minds,  thus  producing  sensations  which 
give  knowledge  of  the  things.  And  how  neatly  this  explains  how 
it  is  that  things  make  themselves  known  through  such  a  perplexing 
and  apparently  inconsistent  variety  of  appearances.  Our  ideas, 
i.e.  the  appearances  of  which  we  are  immediately  conscious,  are 
in  the  mind.  In  the  external  thing  there  are  qualities,  which  are 
certain  powers  to  produce  ideas  in  us.  Some  of  these  qualities, 
which  we  may  call  original  or  primary,  are  inseparable  from  things, 
and  exist  in  things  as  we  perceive  them.  In  other  words,  our 
ideas  of  them  truly  resemble  them,  and  give  us  correct  information 
as  to  what  they  are.  These  primary  qualities  of  bodies  are  their 
solidity,  extension,  figure,  motion,  or  rest,  and  number.  But  things 
can,  by  their  primary  qualities,  produce  in  us  many  sensations 
which  do  not  truly  represent  anything  in  the  things  themselves. 
Such  effects  upon  us  of  the  primary  qualities  are  colors,  sounds, 
tastes,  odors,  pains,  etc.  These  must  not  be  considered  as  outside 
of  the  mind.  They  are  internal  effects  of  the  action  of  an  external 
1  "An  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,"  Book  IV,  Chapter  XI,  §  3. 


140  The  External  World 

reality,  and  must  not  be  projected  outward.  The  bulk,  number, 
figure,  and  motion  of  the  parts  of  things  are  really  in  them  whether 
we  perceive  them  or  not.  But  colors,  tastes,  sounds,  and  the  rest, 
vanish,  when  the  perceiving  sense  is  withdrawn,  into  nothingness.1 
When  once  this  distinction  is  grasped,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  there 
may  be  a  varying  appearance  of  an  unvarying  reality,  and  it  is 
possible  to  distinguish  the  latter  from  the  former. 

Thus  I  recognize  the  fact  that  the  tree  seen  now  as  small, 
faint,  and  blue,  and  now  as  large,  vivid,  and  unmistakably  green, 
has  no  real  color  at  all.  The  whole  series  of  colors,  and,  I  must 
add,  the  whole  series  of  sizes  given  in  vision,  must  be  regarded  as 
a  series  of  effects  produced  upon  my  sense  by  an  external  thing 
that  cannot  be  said  to  resemble  any  member  in  the  series.  If  I 
am  near  the  thing,  it  looks  green  and  it  looks  large ;  if  I  am  far 
away  from  it,  it  looks  blue  and  it  looks  small.  This  is  as  it  should 
be.  When  things  act  upon  me  under  varying  circumstances,  they 
should  produce  varying  results.  The  shifting  iridescence  of  the 
colors  upon  the  turning  neck  of  Pyrrho's  dove  need  have  occa- 
sioned him  no  anxiety,  had  he  been  shrewd  enough  to  grasp  the 
truth  that  the  neck  remained  the  same  as  to  "  bulk,  figure,  and 
motion  of  parts,"  and  that  the  play  of  colors  was  just  where  it 
should  be,  in  his  own  mind.  He  could  have  seized  the  reality 
through  the  appearance,  and  have  saved  himself  from  universal 
scepticism.  There  is,  then,  a  real  world  of  things  external  to  my 
mind,  and  of  this  world  I  can  form  a  just  notion  by  exercising 
sufficient  discretion  in  discriminating  between  appearances  which 
really  correspond  to  things  and  appearances  which  merely  indicate 
what  things  are,  under  such  and  such  circumstances,  doing  to  me. 
If  I  fall  into  error,  the  fault  is  mine. 

In  the  above  exposition  of  Locke's  doctrine  I  have  modified  it 
in  but  one  trifling  particular,  and  in  making  this  modification  I 
have  shown  myself  a  better  Lockian  than  he.2  At  first  sight  the 
doctrine  appears  to  be  fairly  consistent  with  itself,  and  to  give  a 
plausible  explanation  of  the  fact  that  we  do  find  it  possible  to 
draw  a  distinction  between  things  as  they  are  and  things  as  they 

1  "An  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,"  Book  IT,  Chapter  VIII. 

2  That  is  to  say,  I  have  argued  about  the  series  of  sizes  which  seem  to  be  given 
in  vision  as  he  has  about  the  series  of  colors,  in  so  far,  at  least,  as  to  conclude  that 
we  cannot  regard  the  "real "  size  of  the  thing  to  be  given  in  any  one  of  the  visual 
experiences. 


Distinction  between  Appearance  and  Reality         141 

appear  to  us.  There  is  certainly  something  very  taking  about  it 
to  a  man  at  a  certain  stage  of  his  progress  in  reflection.  It 
explains  the  real  world,  without  wholly  recasting  it ;  it  explains  it 
without  abandoning  the  psychological  standpoint  of  which  so 
much  has  been  said  in  this  volume,  the  standpoint  of  common 
sense  and  of  natural  science.  The  real  world  is  still  there,  robbed 
of  its  colors  and  certain  other  things,  it  is  true ;  but  it  is  there  as  a 
photograph  is  there  to  represent  a  painting.  One  has  at  least  an 
outline,  and  some  other  hints  and  indications  which  enable  one  at 
will  to  supply  what  is  lacking.  By  keeping  pretty  constantly 
before  one  the  reasonings  out  of  which  this  real  world  has  grown, 
one  may  come  to  make  it  appear,  at  times,  very  real. 

But  even  to  the  man  who  champions  it,  it  seems  often  to  fade 
away,  and  to  give  place  to  the  less  ethereal  and  more  fleshly  world 
of  his  familiar  experiences.  When  one  thinks  of  shifting  colors, 
faint  and  distant  objects,  bitter  tastes  that  normally  should  be 
sweet,  sounds  audible  to  some  and  not  to  others,  et  id  omne  genus, 
it  grows,  as  I  have  said  above,  more  or  less  substantial.  But  when 
one  sits  at  one's  desk,  lays  one's  hand  on  the  expanse  of  color, 
hears  the  cheerful  ticking  of  the  clock,  which  loudly  reiterates  its 
denial  that  it  can  by  any  conceivable  right  be  banished  to  any 
world  of  phantoms  —  then  this  world  of  colors,  sounds,  and  the 
rest  asserts  its  right  to  be  regarded  as  the  real  world,  and  the  other 
fades  away  into  the  unreality  of  things  merely  thought  of.  The 
man  who  reflects  seems  to  live  in  at  least  two  real  worlds,  and  to 
live  in  these  alternately.  If  he  always  reflected,  he  might  be  able 
to  stay  permanently  in  one. 

The  real  world  recognized  by  modern  science  is  essentially  the 
same  with  the  real  world  of  Locke.  We  are  told  that  nothing 
exists  in  the  physical  universe  save  matter  and  energy.  Mattel- 
occupies  space,  and  may  be  made  to  change  its  position  in  space. 
Energy  may  be  regarded  as  "  a  condition  of  matter  in  virtue  of 
which  any  definite  portion  of  it  may  be  made  to  effect  changes  in 
other  definite  portions."  1  Energy  may  be  distinguished  as  energy 
of  position  and  energy  of  motion,  and  these  two  are  convertible 
with  each  other  according  to  certain  definite  laws.  No  particle  of 

1  G.  F.  Barker,  "  Physics,"  Chapter  I.  We  sometimes  meet,  at  the  present  day, 
with  a  much  broader  use  of  the  word  "energy."  The  extension  of  the  term  does 
not  appear  to  me  to  be  fruitful.  See  the  account  of  Ostwald's  doctrine  in  Chap- 
ter XXXI. 


142  The  External  World 

matter  can  be  created  or  destroyed ;  and  the  sum  of  the  potential 
and  kinetic  energy  in  the  universe  must  always  remain  constant. 

The  real  world  consists,  then,  of  masses  of  matter  distributed 
in  space  and  moving  in  diverse  ways.  It  is  not  to  be  conceived  as 
1  a  world  of  colors,  sounds,  tastes,  odors,  and  the  rest.  This  sub- 
jective world,  the  world  of  appearances,  comes  into  being  when  a 
certain  small  mass  of  matter,  a  brain,  is  acted  upon  in  certain  defi- 
nite ways  by  masses  of  matter  in  motion.  However  important  the 
differences  between  the  real  world  as  it  was  conceived  by  one  who 
wrote  before  the  days  of  Lavoisier  and  Joule,  and  the  world  as 
science  now  conceives  it,  the  line  between  appearance  and  reality 
is  still  found  where  it  was  before.  To  the  masses  of  matter  which 
produce  appearances  we  may  not  attribute  more  than  "  their  solid- 
ity, extension,  figure,  motion  or  rest,  and  number." 

But  modern  science  has  much  to  say  regarding  the  intimate 
composition  of  such  bodies.  Where  Locke  was  unable  to  do  more 
than  to  speak  vaguely  of  the  "  insensible  particles  "  of  bodies  that 
manifest  their  existence  to  the  senses  by  the  effects  which  they 
produce,  we  are  in  the  possession  of  a  mass  of  information  very 
carefully  worked  over,  based  upon  observation  and  painstaking 
experiment,  and  certainly  as  worthy  of  at  least  a  guarded  accept- 
ance as  is  much  to  which  we  yield  credence,  touching  the  minute 
parts  of  things. 

According  to  this  doctrine  the  pen  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  is 
not  the  continuously  extended,  motionless  thing  that  it  seems  to 
be.  It  is  composed  of  molecules  in  rapid  motion  and  situated  at 
considerable  distances  from  each  other.  A  molecule  is  the  small- 
est portion  of  any  substance  which  exhibits  the  properties  of  that 
substance.  But  the  molecule  itself  must  not  be  regarded,  as  I  was 
at  first  inclined  to  regard  the  whole  pen,  as  one  continuous  thing. 
It  is  composed  of  atoms,  and  these  atoms  may  separate  from  one 
another  and  form  new  combinations  with  other  atoms,  which  com- 
binations will  possess  new  properties.  Thus  substances  may  be 
decomposed,  and  out  of  their  elements  new  substances  may  be 
built  up.  In  all  such  transformations  nothing  remains  unchanged 
except  the  atom,  which  passes  from  molecule  to  molecule,  enters 
now  into  this  combination,  now  into  that,  is  driven  about  from  one 
end  of  the  universe  to  the  other,  but  everywhere  retains  its  iden- 
tity and  its  peculiar  character. 

There  appears  to  be  no  little  difference  between  a  view  of  the 


Distinction  between  Appearance  and  Reality        143 

real  world  which  conceives  it  to  be  made  up  of  extended  things 
which  actually  exist  as  they  are  represented  in  our  ideas,  and  this 
view  which  dissolves  the  physical  universe  into  a  whirl  of  atoms, 
the  eddies  in  which  make  themselves  perceptible  to  the  senses 
in  such  ways  as  to  give  birth  to  the  colorless  phantoms  which 
Locke  left  us  when  he  robbed  us  of  the  secondary  qualities  of 
bodies.  His  real  world  was  at  least  a  something  given  in  percep- 
tion. This  world  of  atoms  we  cannot  perceive  at  all.  We  conceive 
it  with  pain  and  labor,  and  everything  that  is  in  it  has  been  wrung 
from  nature  by  a  laborious  process  of  inference.  What  lies  on  the 
surface  is  always  and  everywhere  to  be  recognized  as  appearance. 
The  reality  is  hidden,  and  must  be  groped  for.  Even  when  found, 
it  is  not  grasped  directly ;  we  do  not  perceive  it ;  we  only  know 
that  it  must  be  there. 

But  the  modification  of  the  Lockian  doctrine  offered  us  by  the 
modern  Atomism  is,  after  all,  only  a  modification,  a  development. 
The  doctrine  remains,  as  has  been  said,  very  much  the  same  at 
bottom.  There  is  still  an  external  world  of  things,  and  this  is  not 
a  world  of  colors,  sounds,  odors,  tastes,  etc.,  but  a  world  of  things 
extended,  resisting,  moving  about  in  space.  By  their  action  upon 
us,  such  things  cause  us  to  see  colors,  hear  sounds,  and  the  rest. 
To  such  a  world  Locke  gave  some  slight  recognition  in  his  asser- 
tion that  the  "  insensible  particles  "  of  bodies  produce  effects  upon 
our  minds.  But  notwithstanding  this  admission  of  the  fact  that 
bodies  are  composed  of  minute  particles,  and  that  we  cannot  per- 
ceive these  as  they  are,  Locke  held  that  we  do  truly  perceive 
bodies  as  they  are.  In  other  words,  he  held  that  our  ideas  of  them 
truly  resemble  them.  This  inconsistency  modern  science  has 
remedied.  It  has  transferred  to  the  atom  what  Locke  declared  to 
be  true  of  masses  of  matter  as  wholes.  It  does  not  maintain  that 
we  can  perceive  the  atom,  but  it  claims  that  we  can,  with  some 
approach  to  accuracy,  truly  represent  it. 

Atoms  are  extended,  and  occupy  space ;  they  exclude  each 
other  from  the  same  portion  of  space  at  any  instant;  they  are  capa- 
ble of  changing  their  location  and  their  relations  to  each  other. 
In  short,  they  are  little  bodies,  endowed  with  primary  qualities, 
and  capable,  under  appropriate  circumstances,  of  begetting  appear- 
ances. That  they  are  not  immediately  perceived  is  a  matter  of 
small  importance,  and  need  not  in  itself  affect  the  question  of  their 
reality.  We  accept  as  real  much  that  we  do  not  immediately  per- 


144  The  External  World 

ceive.  Even  the  masses  of  matter  which  Locke  regards  us  as  per- 
ceiving are  not,  on  his  own  principles,  immediately  perceived. 
They  are  represented  by  ideas ;  and  there  is  no  valid  reason  for 
affirming  that  atoms  may  not  be  as  truly,  though  symbolically, 
represented,  as  bodies  of  a  larger  size. 

As  to  the  general  nature  of  the  reasonings  upon  which  the  doc- 
trine of  atoms  and  molecules  rests,  that  is  in  no  sense  occult  and 
beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  unlearned.  One  reasons  here 
as  one  reasons  when  dealing  with  things  commonly  believed  to  be 
open  to  direct  inspection.  We  have  abundant  evidence  that 
things  which  cannot,  under  given  circumstances,  be  directly  per- 
ceived to  have  parts,  can  be  seen  to  have  them  when  circumstances 
are  changed.  A  mere  diminution  of  the  distance  between  the 
object  in  question  and  the  observing  eye  may  be  sufficient  to  reveal 
the  composite  nature  of  what  did  not  before  seem  to  be  composite. 
In  the  same  way,  things  may  turn  out  to  be  a  mere  group  of  sepa- 
rate things,  an  agglomeration  of  discontinuous  parts,  when  they 
did  not  at  first  appear  to  be  of  this  nature.  One  need  only  walk 
toward  a  distant  clump  of  trees,  or  hold  a  loosely  woven  fabric 
between  the  eye  and  the  light,  to  be  made  conscious  of  this  fact. 
Things,  furthermore,  that  we  hastily  assume  to  be  at  rest,  are  dis- 
covered to  be  in  motion.  No  one  doubts  the  motion  of  the  minute 
hand  of  his  watch  merely  because  he  does  not  see  it  move.  Nor  is 
there  anything  foreign  to  common  experience  in  the  notion  of  a 
new  set  of  properties  arising  out  of  new  groupings  of  atoms.  We 
have  too  often  put  together  to  make  a  third  thing,  differing  in  its 
properties  from  any  of  its  constituents,  the  sorts  of  things  with 
which  our  senses  seem  to  make  us  acquainted. 

All  these  experiences  serve  to  make  comprehensible  to  us  the 
real  world  advocated  by  the  man  of  science.  It  is  still  the  real 
world  in  which  we  find  ourselves  when  once  we  have  made  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  matter. 
Our  attention  has  passed  from  things  to  the  "insensible  particles" 
of  things  and  their  groupings ;  it  concerns  itself  with  very  little 
things  instead  of  with  large  ones.  But  we  still  think  of  the  little 
things  as  we  thought  before  of  the  larger  ones  of  which  we  con- 
ceive these  to  be  parts. 

It  does  not  concern  me  here  to  describe  in  detail  the  reasonings 
which  have  resulted  in  this  view  of  the  physical  universe,  nor  even 
to  set  forth  that  view  except  in  the  merest  outline.  I  have  spoken 


Distinction  between  Appearance  and  Reality        145 

briefly  of  atoms  and  molecules,  but  have  not  even  touched  upon 
the  speculations  which  have  been  hazarded  regarding  the  possible 
structure  of  the  atom,  the  explanation  of  certain  of  its  properties, 
the  nature  of  the  ether,  and  other  matters  of  the  sort,  concerning 
which  the  physicist  speaks  with  a  somewhat  hesitating  utterance. 

Whether  atoms  remain  forever  unchanged,  or  whether  they  may 
in  the  rush  of  the  elemental  forces  be  rent  asunder ;  whether  they 
are  to  be  regarded  as  bits  of  matter  that  are  rigid  and  immobile 
within  their  own  skin,  or  whether  they  may  be  assumed  to  be 
centres  of  energy  analogous  to  whirling  rings  of  smoke ;  whether 
the  ether  is  corpuscular  in  structure,  or  whether  it  is  continuous  ; 
all  these  questions,  and  such  as  these,  concern  the  physicist  rather 
than  the  metaphysician.  They  are  matters  of  detail,  and  may  be 
passed  over  by  one  who  desires  only  to  discover  where  the  scien- 
tist draws  the  line  between  appearance  and  reality.  Even  the 
truth  of  the  atomic  theory  is  not  here  of  great  importance.  The 
doctrine  may  come  to  be  modified,  and  will  be  modified  or  even 
rejected,  if  some  other  doctrine  gets  to  be  recognized  as  a  better 
explanation  of  the  facts  of  our  experience.  But  it  seems  safe  to 
predict  that  any  new  doctrine  that  takes  its  place  will  distinguish 
between  appearance  and  reality  after  somewhat  the  same  way  as 
it  does.  The  histoiy  of  science  reveals  that  science  is  in  this 
respect  consistently  Lockian.  There  is  good  reason  why  this 
should  be  so,  as  I  shall  try  to  make  plain  soon. 

From  the  foregoing  it  appears  evident  that,  before  one  can 
rise  to  the  conception  of  the  material  world  as  it  seems  to  be 
revealed  to  modern  science,  one  must  have  made  a  distinction,  not 
merely  between  sensations  and  things  imaginary,  but  also  between 
sensations  of  different  classes.  All  sensations  may  have  reality 
in  a  sense  in  which  things  imaginary  have  not.  Its  reference 
to  an  external  world  may  still  be  regarded  as  guaranteeing  a  sen- 
sation to  be  a  sensation,  even  after  a  man  has  become  an  unscien- 
tific or  a  scientific  Lockian,  and  has  come  to  regard  as  merely 
"  subjective  "  the  colors,  odors,  etc.,  which  he  formerly  supposed  to 
be  qualities  of  external  things.  But  within  the  realm  of  sensations 
the  difference  of  classes  appears  to  be  an  extremely  important  one, 
and  the  distinction  between  the  external  world  as  it  appears  and 
the  external  world  as  it  really  is,  between  appearance  and  reality, 
seems  to  be  bound  up  with  it.  The  significance  of  this  distinction 
between  classes  of  sensations  I  shall  discuss  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  APPEARANCE 

AND   REALITY 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  distinction  between  the  physical  universe 
of  things  existing  in  space  and  moving  in  space  and  the  inner 
world  of  the  effects,  produced  by  such  motions,  within  our  con- 
sciousness, seems  to  present  a  convenient  criterion  for  separating  the 
real  from  the  apparent.  According  to  this  doctrine,  the  morning 
stars  may  sing  together  as  energetically  as  they  please :  they  can 
produce  no  sound  unless  there  be  a  listening  ear  and  the  appropri- 
ate medium  for  conducting  vibrations  to  it.  Without  is  matter  in 
motion  ;  within  are  colors,  sounds,  tastes,  odors,  pains,  and  anything 
else  that  can  come  under  the  head  of  sensation.  The  physical  world 
is  one  thing,  and  the  circle  of  our  sensations  is  another.  The  one 
is  the  realm  of  the  real  ;  the  other,  the  world  of  appearances. 

To  be  sure,  the  man  who  accepts  literally  the  Lockian  distinc- 
tion between  ideas  and  things,  occupies  the  psychological  stand- 
point of  which  so  much  has  been  said  earlier  in  this  work.  He 
distinguishes  between  ideas  and  the  things  they  represent,  places 
the  former  in  consciousness  and  the  latter  outside  of  it,  and,  after 
burning  every  bridge  that  can  lead  from  the  one  world  to  the 
other,  assumes  confidently  that  he  is  a  citizen  of  both,  and  can  pass 
freely  between  the  two,  describing  in  detail  their  resemblances  and 
their  differences. 

To  Locke,  as  to  every  one  else,  bodies  appeared  to  be,  not 
merely  extended,  but  also  colored.  He  affirmed  them  to  be  really 
extended,  but  not  really  colored.  On  what  ground  did  he  thus 
discriminate  between  extension  and  color?  One  will  search  his 
writings  in  vain  for  a  single  scrap  of  real  evidence  adduced  to 
prove  that  some  ideas  (those  of  the  primary  qualities  of  bodies) 
have  their  duplicates  in  an  external  world,  while  other  ideas 
(those  of  the  secondary  qualities)  are  not  thus  duplicated  in 
things.  Locke  attempts  something  like  a  proof,  it  is  true,  but  it 

146 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  147 

is  easy  to  see  that  his  would-be  proof  consists  in  taking  a  given 
experienced  content  now  for  an  idea  and  now  for  a  thing.  He 
contradicts  himself  flatly,  as,  indeed,  he  must.  He  cannot  ride 
to  a  satisfactory  conclusion,  for  he  has  from  the  outset  been  astride 
of  a  contradiction. 

And  every  modern  Lockian,  whether  scientific  or  non-scientific, 
sticks  in  the  same  difficulty.  If  the  sounds  and  colors  that  I  per- 
ceive do  not  exist  in  a  world  beyond  us,  but  come  into  being  in  me 
when  my  body  is  acted  upon  in  certain  ways,  why  may  not  the 
same  be  true  of  the  resistance,  the  extension,  the  motion,  that  I 
seem  to  perceive  in  things  ?  Can  I  perceive  bodies  to  be  resisting, 
extended,  or  in  motion,  unless  they  act  upon  my  body  ?  May  not 
the  resulting  complex  of  sensations  in  this  case,  too,  be  wholly  dif- 
ferent from  the  external  cause?  Perhaps  the  real  world  is  not, 
then,  the  extended  and  imaginable  thing  that  I  have  thought  it. 
Perhaps  it  is  only  a  name  for  the  unknown,  a  something  that  I 
cannot  more  nearly  define. 

The  man  of  science  usually  does  not,  it  is  true,  strip  the  real 
world  quite  so  bare  as  this.  He  denies  to  it  some  of  the  qualities 
it  appears  to  have,  but  permits  it  to  retain  others.  His  position 
seems,  however,  to  be  one  very  arbitrarily  assumed.  He  stops 
where  he  does,  when  he  seems  to  us  to  have  a  logical  momentum 
which  ought  to  carry  him  farther.  The  next  stage  in  his  progress 
would  result  in  the  unknowable,  and  the  final  stage  would  bring 
him  to  the  repudiation  of  even  that  shadow.  It  is  only  necessary 
for  me,  in  this  connection,  to  remind  my  reader  of  the  illustration 
of  the  prisoner  in  the  cell, l  and  to  insist  that  even  an  external 
Unknowable  cannot  be  attained  with  the  aid  of  the  resources  at 
his  command.  Watering  the  external  world  into  utter  indefinite- 
ness  does  not  justify  the  assumption  of  its  existence  ;  the  reality 
of  things  is  not  a  function  of  their  vagueness. 

In  so  far,  therefore,  as  the  man  of  science  distinguishes  between 
appearance  and  reality  by  placing  the  former  in  consciousness  and 
the  latter  without  it,  his  position  may  be  justly  criticised  by  the 
metaphysician.  Were  no  other  reality  than  this  attainable,  he 
would  be  forced  to  get  on  without  any  reality  at  all.  But  we  have 
seen  that  the  body  of  truth  presented  us  in  the  natural  sciences  is 
not  to  be  repudiated  merely  because  the  scientist  is  not  also  a  meta- 
physician. We  may  assume  that  what  he  has  to  tell  us  of  the  real 

1  See  Chapter  II. 


148  The  External  World 

world  is  not  said  of  a  world  of  which  he  knows  nothing  from  direct 
observation,  and  which  he  arbitrarily  creates.  The  distinction  be- 
tween the  "  inner  "  and  the  "  outer  "  worlds  is  a  distinction  within 
consciousness,  taking  that  word  in  the  broad  sense.  It  ought  to 
be  possible,  therefore,  to  restate  what  science  tells  us  of  the  line 
which  divides  appearance  from  reality,  in  such  a  way  as  to  elimi- 
nate the  contradiction  which  seems  to  belong  to  the  natural  science 
point  of  view. 

To  do  this  it  is  only  necessary  to  examine  carefully  what  is 
actually  done  by  the  Lockian  and  the  student  of  modern  science 
when  they  draw  a  distinction  between  the  real  physical  world  as  it 
is  in  its  nakedness  and  the  variegated  garb  under  which  it  presents 
itself  to  consciousness.  That  we  are  able  to  see  clearly  the  true 
significance  of  this  distinction  we  owe  to  the  analytic  genius  of 
Berkeley,  who  in  his  "  New  Theory  of  Vision  "  first  succeeded  in 
turning  the  light  upon  what  had  been  a  very  obscure  corner  in  our 
experience.  Berkeley's  analysis  has  been  so  frequently  repeated 
by  others,  and  his  doctrine,  with  somewhat  insignificant  modifica- 
tions and  additions,  has  been  so  thoroughly  incorporated  into  the 
psychology  of  our  day,  that  I  may  assume  the  reader  to  be  familiar 
with  at  least  its  general  outline.  I  shall,  hence,  not  dwell  upon  it 
in  detail,  but  shall  attempt,  in  general  harmony  with  it,  a  brief 
explanation  of  the  distinction  with  which  we  are  here  concerned. 

We  have  seen  in  a  preceding  chapter1  that,  when  we  ask  our- 
selves what  we  mean  by  perceived  objects,  we  discover  that  they 
are  groups  of  sensational  elements,  and  we  conceive  them  to  be 
highly  complex  groups. 

My  table  appears  to  me  as  hard,  extended,  colored,  warm  or 
cold,  etc.  We  have  seen,  furthermore,  that  my  table  means  to  me 
much  more  than  the  particular  group  of  actual  sensations  that  I 
may  be  experiencing  at  any  one  moment.  At  this  moment  I  be- 
lieve the  table  to  have  an  under  side  which  I  do  not  see,  and  I 
regard  that  as  just  as  truly  existent  as  that  which  is  now  in  the 
sense.  In  other  words,  I  believe  that  a  multitude  of  sensational 
elements  belong  to  this  group  which  are  never  at  one  time  directly 
perceived  to  belong  to  it. 

But  this  is  not  all.  My  table  is  a  thing  with  a  history:  it  has 
a  past,  and  it  will  have  a  future.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  merely 
a  group  of  sensations  conceived  of  as  existing  in  the  present  mo- 

1  Chapter  VI. 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  149 

ment.  This  group  is  continuous  with  an  indefinite  number  of 
sensational  elements  belonging  to  the  past,  and  will  give  place 
to  sensational  elements  belonging  to  the  future.  This  amounts 
merely  to  saying  that  I  conceive  my  table,  not  merely  as  existing, 
but  as  having  existed,  and  as  being  about  to  exist  in  time  to 
come. 

It  is  of  great  importance  to  note  that,  although  my  table  is,  in 
one  sense,  a  unit,  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  vastly  complex  group  of 
different  elements.  This  is  a  truth  we  are  in  no  small  danger  of 
overlooking,  and  such  an  oversight  can  only  result  in  confusion. 
We  habitually  speak  of  seeing  the  same  table  that  we  touch,  and 
we  declare  a  table  seen  to-day  to  be  the  same  with  one  seen  yester- 
day. What  can  the  word  "  same  "  mean  when  used  in  such  a  con- 
nection? Can  the  sense  of  sight  give  us  anything  but  colors,  or 
the  sense  of  touch  anything  but  tactual  sensations  ?  Is  yesterday's 
experience,  either  remembered  or  imagined,  strictly  identical  with 
the  experience  of  to-day  ?  It  was  the  imperfect  recognition  of  the 
complex  character  of  the  objects  of  perception,  and  the  misconcep- 
tion of  the  true  nature  of  their  unity,  that  occasioned  Pyrrho's  per- 
plexity regarding  the  apple.  The  apple  appears  to  the  sight  to  be 
yellow,  to  the  taste  to  be  sweet,  and  to  the  smell  to  be  fragrant. 
What  is  the  real  nature  of  the  apple  ?  How  can  one  thing  be  all 
of  these  ? 

The  difficulty  vanishes  when  we  recognize  that  by  one  "  thing  " 
we  mean  one  group  of  interrelated  elements,  of  elements  so  con- 
nected that  any  one  may  stand  for  the  whole  group  and  give 
information  regarding  it.  When  I  say  I  see  the  table  I  do  not 
mean  merely  that  I  am  conscious  of  certain  color-sensations. 
When  I  say  that  I  feel  it,  I  do  not  mean  merely  that  I  am  con- 
scious of  certain  sensations  of  touch  and  resistance.  When  I  say 
that  I  see  and  touch  the  same  thing,  I  evidently  do  not  mean  that 
what  is  immediately  present  in  the  sense  in  the  one  case  is  identical 
with  what  is  immediately  present  in  the  other.  It  would  be  mere 
nonsense  to  affirm  this.  By  affirming  that  I  see  and  touch  the 
same  thing,  I  can  only  mean  that  the  two  experiences  in  question 
belong  to  the  same  group,  and  that  either  may  be  taken  as  repre- 
sentative of  the  group  as  a  whole. 

But  it  should  be  remarked  that  in  such  a  group  of  interrelated 
sensational  elements  all  the  elements  have  not  equal  values.  It 
was  maintained  by  Berkeley,  and  his  position  has,  under  much 


150  The  External  World 

criticism,  remained  unshaken,  that  our  experiences  of  touch  and 
movement  form  a  nucleus  of  such  importance  in  the  whole  com- 
plex which  we  call  an  object,  that,  when  we  come  to  distinguish 
between  real  and  apparent  objects  at  all,  it  is  to  this  nucleus  that 
we  refer  when  we  speak  of  the  real  object.  All  our  judgments  of 
distance,  of  magnitude,  of  position,  have  reference  to  the  tactual 
thing,  not  to  the  visual,  to  the  auditory,  or  to  any  other.  Where 
is  the  faint  blue  patch  of  color  which  means  to  me  a  tree  at  a 
distance?  Is  it  half  a  mile  away?  When  I  walk  half  a  mile  it 
is  hopelessly  lost ;  it  began  to  change  when  I  first  moved,  and  has 
been  succeeded  by  an  indefinite  series  of  visual  sensations  no  two 
of  which  are  precisely  alike.  To  regain  it,  I  must  go  back  again 
to  the  point  from  which  I  started.  What  is  it,  then,  that  is  half  a 
mile  distant  ?  The  tactual  core  of  the  whole  series  of  experiences 
which  constitute  my  experience  of  a  tree.  And  what  is  meant  by 
saying  that  anything  is  half  a  mile  away  ?  In  terms  of  what  must 
distance  be  ultimately  interpreted?  In  sensations  of  movement. 
As  Berkeley  has  expressed  it,  the  visual  element  in  a  thing  stands 
related  to  the  tactual  as  sign  to  thing  signified.  It  is  the  latter  in 
which  our  thought  rests  even  when  it  appears  to  be  occupied  with 
the  former. 

The  distinction  between  sign  and  thing  signified,  between  such 
sensations  as  those  of  sound  or  of  hearing,  and  the  tactual  things 
of  which  they  give  us  information,  is  one  rather  forced  upon  us  in 
cases  where  the  sign  is  not  wholly  satisfactory,  or  where  reflection 
faces  the  task  of  trying  to  pick  out  from  a  whole  series  of  signs 
the  one  which  shall  be  regarded  as  in  a  special  sense  belonging  to 
the  object.  This  we  saw  in  the  last  chapter.  We  saw  also  that, 
in  certain  cases,  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  realize  that  we  must 
still  draw  the  distinction.  It  is  not  very  hard  to  distinguish 
between  a  faint  blue  patch  of  color  and  the  real  tree ;  but  as  I  sit 
at  my  desk,  lay  my  hand  upon  it,  and  explore  its  surface  with  my 
eyes,  it  is  hard,  indeed,  to  realize  that  what  I  see  and  what  I  touch 
are  not  strictly  the  same,  that  they  are  not  identical,  but  are  merely 
diverse  elements  in  the  one  complex  group  of  sensations.  The 
thing  seen  seems  to  correspond  so  exactly  to  the  thing  touched, 
to  share  so  absolutely  its  extension  and  position,  that  it  appears 
impossible  to  divorce  them.  The  sign  is  so  satisfactory  that  it 
has  fused  completely  with  the  thing  signified,  and  I  can  no  longer 
distinguish  between  them.  I  am  forced  to  exclaim:  Is  not  this 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  151 

expanse  of  color  really  extended,  and  seen  to  be  extended? 
Does  not  the  color  occupy  the  same  place  as  the  thing  touched? 
How,  then,  can  one  maintain  that  all  our  judgments  of  distance,, 
magnitude,  and  position  refer  ultimately  only  to  the  world  of 
things  tactual  ?  How  hold  that  these  conceptions  have  no  other 
content  than  that  which  is  furnished  by  sensations  of  touch  and 
movement? 

Those  who  have  grasped  but  imperfectly  the  significance  of 
Berkeley's  analysis  are  inclined  to  maintain  that  these  conceptions 
may  have  another  content.  Sensations  of  all  classes,  it  is  claimed, 
have  the  quality  of  voluminousness,  they  have  an  "  extensity " 
which  is,  in  embryo,  the  notion  of  space.  This  is  the  primary 
intuition  of  space,  which  may  be  furnished  by  any  sense ;  and  the. 
question  arises  how  these  various  spaces,  tactual  and  motor,  visual, 
auditory,  and  the  rest,  are  joined  together  into  the  one  space  of 
our  developed  and  interrelated  experience. 

But  those  who  reason  thus  have  fallen  into  error  through  over- 
looking a  distinction  of  fundamental  importance.  They  have  con- 
fused "  extensity,"  the  primary  experience  of  voluminousness,  with 
"  extension  "  ;  they  have  confounded  an  experience  assumed  to  be 
taken  in  its  naked  simplicity,  with  the  same  experience  supple- 
mented by  its  interpretation  in  terms  of  a  different  kind. 

Undoubtedly  the  extensity  of  sensations  of  all  classes  is  not 
without  its  significance.  The  retina  of  the  eye  is  a  surface,  and 
the  stimulation  of  a  small  part  and  that  of  a  larger  part  would 
make  themselves  known  in  consciousness  by  some  difference  in  the 
resulting  sensation.  It  would  be  impossible  to  interpret  visual 
sensations  in  tactual  as  we  actually  do ;  it  would  be  impossible  to 
recognize  one  part  of  the  visual  experience  as  referring  to  one 
part  of  the  tactual  object  and  another  part  of  the  same  experience 
as  referring  to  another,  were  the  visual  experience  itself  not 
composite. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  admit  this,  and  another  to  maintain  that 
the  mere  consciousness  of  the  visual  sensations  as  thus  composite 
would  give  us  a  notion  of  extended  things  in  any  way  comparable 
to  that  which  we  possess.  Introspective  analysis  reveals  that 
when  we  imagine  a  line,  a  surface,  or  a  solid,  we  do  more  than 
merely  to  recall  into  consciousness  a  certain  quantity  of  visual 
sensation.  The  imaginary  line  or  surface  is  conceived  as  vaguely 
localized  in  space.  It  is  out  beyond  us,  looked  at  from  some  more 


152  The  External  World 

or  less  definite  point  of  view,  and  we  measure  it  by  moving  an 
imaginary  finger  to  it  and  along  it.  It  is  visual  sensation  as 
interpreted,  not  visual  sensation  pure  and  simple.  The  sign  upon 
which  we  have  elected  to  gaze  has  dragged  in  with  it  the  thing 
signified.  We  are  dealing  with  a  real  line,  not  with  a  merely 
visual  experience. 

Had  we  never  had  sensations  of  touch  and  of  movement,  it 
would,  of  course,  have  been  impossible  for  us  thus  to  reduce  other 
sensations  to  the  subordinate  position  of  signs.  The  extensity  of 
the  sensations  allowed  us  might  then  have  played  an  independent 
role  of  some  importance.  But  as  things  are,  we  must  recognize 
the  fact  that  sensations  other  than  those  of  touch  and  movement, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  of  their  extensity,  do  not  give  us  spaces 
or  places  at  all ;  they  stand  merely  as  the  signs  of  such  spaces  or 
places,  and  such  spaces  or  places  are  tactual.  All  space  is  tactual 
space.  Colors  do  not  occupy  the  same  place  as  the  tactual  things 
to  which  they  belong.  They  do  not  occupy  space  at  all,  nor  do 
sounds  or  tastes  or  odors.  Thus  we  see  that  the  problem  of  join- 
ing together  the  chaotic  mass  of  elementary  spaces  furnished  by 
the  different  classes  of  sensations  gives  place  to  another.  That 
problem  is:  How  does  it  come  that  all  other  classes  of  sensations 
find  their  interpretation  in  sensations  of  touch  and  movement? 
Why  do  the  latter  constitute  for  us  the  real  thing  rather  than 
the  former? 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  group  of  sensations  we  are  now  dis- 
cussing, the  "  real "  core  of  a  material  object,  is,  as  compared  with 
sensations  of  other  classes,  relatively  constant  and  unchanging. 
The  visual  sensations  which  make  me  aware  of  the  presence  of 
a  real  thing  may  vary  within  very  wide  limits.  I  may  have  a  good 
look  at  a  man,  as  I  express  it,  and  a  very  complex  mass  of  color- 
sensations,  giving  much  information  regarding  the  tactual  object, 
is  present  in  consciousness.  I  may  see  him  at  a  greater  distance, 
and  the  visual  sensations  experienced  are  very  different.  I  may 
see  him  still  further  away,  and  the  visual  object  is  reduced  to  a 
mere  speck  of  faint  color.  "  The  visual  object "  does  not  mean  in 
the  one  case  what  it  does  in  the  other.  Neither  quantitatively  nor 
qualitatively  does  it  remain  unchanged.  Yet  I  regard  the  real 
man  as  unchanged  in  size.  I  know  that  if  I  approach  sufficiently 
near  to  pass  my  hand  over  him,  I  shall  find  that  he  feels  much  the 
same  at  different  times.  The  world  of  objects  made  known  to  me 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  153 

in  sensations  of  touch  and  movement  is  not  so  fluctuating  a  world 
as  that  which  reveals  itself  in  vision. 

Nevertheless,  as  directly  revealed  in  sensation,  it  is  not  an 
absolutely  constant  world.  An  object  as  known  to  the  sensitive 
finger-tips,  and  the  same  object  as  measured  in  terms  of  the  sensa- 
tions furnished  by  a  less  discriminating  part  of  the  body,  are  not 
felt  to  be  strictly  the  same.  A  body  lifted  by  a  wearied  arm  feels 
heavier  than  the  same  body  lifted  by  an  arm  which  is  fresh  and 
vigorous.  But  a  multitude  of  experiences  has  revealed  to  us  the 
fact  that  the  world  of  tactual  things  is  one  the  objects  of  which 
can  be  accurately  measured  in  terms  of  each  other,  and  this  fur- 
nishes us  with  a  system  of  quantitative  relations  relatively  inde- 
pendent of  the  immediate  consciousness  of  quantity  given  in 
particular  experiences. 

No  one  judges  that  a  stick  is  exactly  a  metre  long  by  simply 
passing  his  hand  over  it.  The  stick  is  compared  with  a  standard, 
and  this  standard  is  recognized  as  holding  definite  and  constant 
relations  to  the  things  which  make  up  the  tactual  world.  The 
immediate  experience,  as  such,  is  overlooked ;  or  perhaps  I  would 
better  say,  is  referred  to,  and  is  judged  in  the  light  of,  the  whole 
system  of  relations  which  obtain  among  tactual  things.  A  heavy 
basket,  carried  for  half  a  mile,  seems  to  increase  in  weight,  but  no 
one  dreams  of  judging  that  the  weight  has  really  increased  with 
the  length  of  the  journey.  If  there  is  any  doubt  about  the  matter, 
there  are  the  scales. 

It  was  pointed  out  by  Berkeley  that  tactual  things  are  more 
important  to  us  than  visual,  since  it  is  chiefly  through  their  tactual 
qualities  that  objects  affect  us  for  good  or  ill.  This  has  frequently 
been  emphasized  since  as  helping  to  account  for  the  fact  that  our 
other  sensations  fall  into  the  place  of  signs  and  our  sensations 
of  touch  and  movement  acquire  a  certain  primacy.  It  cannot 
be  denied  that  sensations  which  are  for  any  reason  important  to  us 
tend  to  stand  out  from  the  others,  and  those  which  are  less  im- 
portant tend  to  be  regarded  as  marks  of  the  former.  This  is  true 
of  other  classes  of  sensations  than  those  of  touch  and  movement. 
But  the  most  important  element  in  the  prominence  given  to  our 
sensations  of  touch  and  movement  appears  to  be  their  susceptibility 
of  accurate  measurement.  They  fall  into  an  interrelated  system 
which  is  capable  of  accurate  description,  and  through  their  rela- 
tions to  which  sensations  of  other  classes  may  be  given  that  orderly 


154  The  External  World 

arrangement  which  constitutes  the  difference  between  a  chaos  and 
a  world.  We  explain  the  variations  in  the  visual  object,  the 
changes  in  the  loudness  of  a  given  sound,  by  a  reference  to  things 
tactual,  by  the  introduction  of  the  notion  of  distance.  It  is,  per- 
haps, an  interesting  speculation  whether  a  consciousness  without 
such  a  "  core  "  as  I  have  been  discussing  could  contain  a  world  — 
whether  the  other  classes  of  sensations  could,  by  direct  relations 
to  each  other,  form  a  system  at  least  analogous  to  the  one  we  know. 
But  whatever  may  be  our  conclusions  upon  this  point,  we  are  forced 
to  admit  that  in  the  system  of  our  experiences  the  tactual  world  is 
the  very  foundation  of  the  whole.  It  is  what  we  mean  by  the  ob- 
jective ;  other  elements  of  our  experience  are  by  contrast  subjective. 

Such  an  objective  world  is  recognized  by  the  unreflective.  It 
is  the  world  in  which  I  rest  when  I  insist  that  I  see  the  real  desk 
before  me  as  it  is  and  reject  the  suggestion  that  I  am  deluded 
by  an  empty  appearance.  I  confound  sign  with  thing  signified,  it 
is  true  ;  but  this  particular  sign  gives  me  the  thing  so  satisfactorily 
that  I  rest  in  the  thing  without  being  forced  to  the  recognition  that 
I  am  grasping  it,  so  to  speak,  at  one  remove.  This  is  the  external 
material  world  of  Locke,  the  world  of  the  primary  qualities  of 
matter,  the  world  of  "  solidity,  extension,  figure,  motion  or  rest, 
and  number."  It  is  the  physical  world  of  matter  and  motion  of 
which  science  treats. 

It  has  been  intimated  in  the  last  chapter  that  the  description, 
which  science  is  in  a  position  to  give  us,  of  the  mechanism  which 
it  conceives  the  physical  world  to  be,  is  extremely  fragmentary 
and  incomplete.  The  ether,  the  atom,  the  molecule,  these  are  not 
characters  with  whose  attributes  and  modes  of  life  we  are  intimately 
acquainted,  and  to  whom  we  may  assign  parts  in  our  drama  with  an 
unshaken  confidence  that  we  are  mirroring  real  life.  The  doc- 
trines of  the  eternity  of  matter  and  the  conservation  of  energy 
are  very  broad  generalizations  made  upon  but  a  slender  basis  of 
observed  fact.  In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  the  attempt 
to  demonstrate  to  an  unwilling  mind  that  the  notion  of  mechanism 
is  not  out  of  place,  at  least  in  the  realm  of  the  organic,  must  surely 
be  a  signal  failure.  That  the  world  is  the  mechanism  that  science 
conceives  it  to  be  is  rather  a  matter  of  faith  than  of  certain  knowl- 
edge. To  overlook  this  fact  is  to  misconceive  the  methods  and  re- 
sults of  scientific  research.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  well  to 
remember  that  a  dogmatic  denial  that  science  is  right  in  its  guesses 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  155 

at  the  truth  cannot  find  its  justification  in  the  limitations  of  human 
knowledge.  An  appeal  to  our  ignorance  is  not  out  of  place  as  an 
argument  against  a  hasty  and  inconsiderate  assent  or  against  over- 
confidence.  It  is  out  of  place  as  an  argument  in  favor  of  unquali- 
fied denial. 

In  a  later  chapter  I  shall  discuss  the  arguments  usually  urged 
against  the  scientific  view  of  the  mechanism  of  nature.  The 
answer  to  them  may  be  conveniently  deferred  until  after  we 
have  seen  more  clearly  what  that  view  is.  But  here  I  wish  to 
take  up  and  examine  at  some  length  a  general  objection  against 
the  reality  of  those  things  which  science  regards  as  the  realities 
which  make  up  the  external  world  of  things. 

The  objection,  when  fully  understood,  may  be  seen  to  impugn 
the  reality,  not  merely  of  the  world  of  atoms  and  molecules  actually 
vouched  for  by  science,  but  also  that  of  any  such  unseen  world  which 
the  progress  of  scientific  research  may  hereafter  seem  to  justify  us 
in  assuming  to  exist.  It  is  an  objection  to  the  validity  of  the  con- 
clusions which  may  be  arrived  at  by  the  science  of  the  future,  as 
well  as  an  objection  to  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by  the  science  of 
our  day.  It  may  be  summed  up  as  follows :  The  real  world  de- 
scribed by  science  is,  after  all,  a  mere  product  of  the  constructive 
imagination.  It  is  not  and  cannot  be  a  something  actually  given 
in  sensation.  Nobody  has  directly  perceived  either  an  atom  or  a 
molecule,  and  perhaps  nobody  ever  will.  Hence,  to  call  such  a 
world  the  reality,  and  to  reduce  to  the  rank  of  mere  appearance 
the  world  of  things  actually  given  in  our  experience  is  absurd. 
It  amounts  to  making  the  hypothetical  and  uncertain  more  real 
than  the  immediate  and  the  certain. 

This  objection  seems,  at  first  sight,  to  be  rather  plausible.  But 
a  little  reflection  makes  it  evident  that  it  draws  its  whole  force 
from  a  misconception  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  "real."  It 
has  been  pointed  out  that,  when  we  recognize  anything  as  real, 
we  are  never  confining  our  attention  to  the  thing  itself,  but  are 
always  keeping  in  view  its  relation  to  other  elements  in  our  ex- 
perience. This  is  true  whether  we  are  speaking,  as  ordinary 
mortals,  about  the  things  which  concern  us  in  common  life,  or, 
as  men  of  science,  about  the  realities  to  which  science  pins  its  faith. 
To  the  plain  man  the  real  is  that  which  takes  its  place  in  a  certain 
orderly  system  which  he  finds  within  his  experience ;  the  unreal  is 
that  which  defies  such  an  arrangement. 


156  The  External  World 

Nor  must  the  expression  "  which  he  finds  within  his  expe- 
rience "  be  misunderstood.  The  system  of  experiences  which 
constitutes  the  real  world  as  conceived  by  the  plain  man  is  less 
complicated  a  construct  than  that  which  constitutes  the  real  world 
of  the  scientist,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  construct.  It  exists  in 
large  part  in  the  imagination,  as  we  have  seen.  When  we  say  that 
he  finds  it,  we  can  only  mean  that  he  is  not  conscious  of  having 
built  it  up  for  himself.  What  is  actually  in  the  sense  at  any 
moment  can  constitute  but  a  very  small  portion  of  his  total  real 
world.  When  such  a  man  first  feels  the  prick  of  the  Pyrrhonic 
doubt,  he  may  hesitate  to  affirm  that  this  or  that  element  really 
belongs  to  the  perceived  object  in  which  he  is  interested,  and  yet 
he  cannot  but  feel  that  certain  members  of  the  class  of  experiences 
he  has  come  to  doubt  may  seem  to  him  more  real  than  the  others. 
For  example,  it  seems  to  him  more  reasonable  to  affirm  that  a  man 
really  is  as  he  looks  when  seen  near  at  hand,  than  that  he  is  as  he 
looks  when  seen  at  a  distance.  The  visual  experience  in  question 
is  not  picked  out  from  the  series  to  which  it  belongs  at  mere  hap- 
hazard. It  is  chosen  because  it  is  the  most  helpful  in  giving  fur- 
ther information  regarding  the  system  of  his  experiences. 

When  the  Lockian  distinguishes  between  the  primary  and  the 
secondary  qualities  of  bodies,  he  is  drawing  a  distinction  of  much 
the  same  kind.  He  is  separating  out  from  the  mass  of  his  sensa- 
tional experiences  a  certain  group  which  can  be  made  to  fall  into  a 
definite  and  measurable  system,  and  which  can  serve  as  a  means 
for  relating  and  ordering  sensations  of  every  kind.  And  when  the 
scientist  passes  from  the  physical  world  as  it  seems  to  be  revealed 
to  us  in  sensations  of  touch  and  movement  to  a  world  of  atoms  and 
molecules,  why  is  he  inclined  to  regard  the  latter  as  the  real  world 
and  the  former  as  the  world  of  appearances?  It  is  because  the 
atoms  and  molecules  which  he  conceives  as  constituting  the  masses 
of  matter  with  which  his  senses  seem  to  make  him  acquainted  help 
to  make  more  complete  and  comprehensible  the  mechanism  which 
appears  to  him  to  be  revealed,  at  least  in  outline,  in  his  experience 
of  things.  Their  incorporation  into  the  scheme  of  the  universe  is 
supposed  to  explain  what  has  lacked  explanation,  and  to  unite  our 
experiences  into  a  more  perfect  system.  Their  assumption  is  by 
no  means  an  arbitrary  one.  It  is  an  extension  of  our  experience 
in  thought,  and  is  only  justified  if  it  be  based  upon  what  is  actually 
given.  The  world  of  the  scientist  is  the  real  world,  just  because 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  157 

it  is  the  completest  and  the  most  satisfactory  world  which  we  have 
attained  to  up  to  the  present. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  word  "  real "  is  by  no  means  synonymous 
with  "  intuitively  present  in  consciousness."  The  plain  man  accepts 
as  real  much  that  is  not  immediately  given.  The  Lockian  does 
the  same.  The  believer  in  the  existence  of  ether,  atoms,  and  mole- 
cules follows  in  their  wake.  To  argue  that  these  things  cannot 
be  real  because  they  are  not  immediately  given  in  the  sense  is 
absurd.  What  is  immediately  given  in  the  sense  is  not  sufficient 
to  make  any  one  of  the  real  worlds  that  we  have  been  discussing. 
It  is  sensations  as  supplemented  by  remembered  and  imagined 
sensations,  and  thus  built  into  a  system  that  constitute  even  the 
real  world  in  which  I  find  myself  before  I  have  fallen  a  victim  to  the 
Pyrrhonic  doubt  and  have  set  about  the  task  of  critical  reconstruc- 
tion. What  I  see  of  my  desk  at  this  moment  is  not  in  itself  enough 
to  constitute  a  desk,  nor  can  it  do  so  when  combined  with  what 
I  actually  feel.  The  reality  is  always  more  than  is  given  in  the 
sense.  It  is  absurd  to  say  that  we  should  turn  our  backs  upon  the 
abstractions  of  science  and  find  the  real  world  in  a  return  to 
immediate  experience. 

We  know  no  such  thing  as  immediate  experience  of  a  real 
world,  if  by  immediate  experience  be  meant  an  experience  in  which 
the  fragmentary  consciousness-contents  actually  in  the  sense  are 
not  supplemented  by  others  and  assigned  a  place  in  a  system  vastly 
more  complex  than  they  are  themselves.  The  difference  between 
the  real  external  world  as  it  stands  revealed  to  the  plain  man  and 
the  physical  world  as  it  is  conceived  by  science  is  by  no  means  an 
absolute  one.  In  neither  case  is  a  given  object  declared  to  be  real 
simply  because  it  is  intuitively  present  in  consciousness.  In  each 
case  we  are  dealing  with  a  construct,  and  objects  are  called  real 
when  it  seems  reasonable  to  assign  them  a  place  in  that  construct. 
In  a  consciousness  too  elementary  to  contain  such  a  system  there 
could  be  no  distinction  of  real  and  unreal.  The  reasoning  which 
would  deny  the  real  existence  of  the  atom  on  the  ground  that  it 
cannot  be  directly  perceived  should,  in  consistency,  deny  that  the 
moon  has  more  than  one  side  —  nay,  it  should  go  farther  than  that, 
and  should  maintain  the  existence  of  no  more  than  the  scrap  of 
color-sensation  which  is  in  the  sense  when  the  eyes  are  directed 
toward  the  moon.  It  was  because  Berkeley  inconsistently  fell  into 
this  error  and  misconceived  the  true  significance  of  real  existence, 


158  The  External  World 

that  he  was  forced  to  save  the  continuous  existence  of  real  things 
by  assigning  to  them  an  actual  existence  in  a  Divine  mind  between 
the  intervals  of  their  perception  in  finite  minds. 

But  if,  in  view  of  all  this,  we  maintain  that  science  is  justified 
in  regarding  the  world  of  atoms  and  molecules  as  the  real  world, 
and  in  reducing  to  the  rank  of  appearance  what  is  directly  given 
in  sensation,  does  it  not  seem  to  follow  that  the  only  reality  left 
us  is  a  hypothetical  and  uncertain  reality  which  may  conceivably 
have  no  existence  at  all  ?  Science  does  not  pretend  to  be  infal- 
lible. Its  account  of  the  constitution  of  the  physical  world  may 
turn  out  to  be  —  not  merely  incomplete,  for  it  is  admittedly  that 
—  but  fundamentally  incorrect.  Should  this  be  the  case,  would  we 
be  left  with  no  reality  ? 

To  this  I  answer:  By  no  means.  We  have  seen  that  our 
sensations  as  a  whole  constitute  an  interconnected  system.  A 
sensation  is  recognized  as  such  because  it  holds  a  place  in  such 
a  system.  As  holding  such  a  place  it  is  real.  When,  within 
such  a  system,  we  distinguish  a  nucleus  which  is  peculiarly  ser- 
viceable in  definitely  ordering  and  arranging  the  whole,  certain 
of  our  sensations  take  the  place  of  signs  and  others  come  to  hold 
the  more  dignified  position  of  thing  signified.  Here  we  have  the 
distinction  between  appearance  and  reality.  But  the  application 
to  any  given  complex  of  sensations  of  the  term  "  appearance  "  does 
not  in  the  least  do  away  with  the  reality  to  which  it  may  lay 
claim,  in  that  it  is  a  complex  of  sensations.  If  it  did  not  belong 
to  one  system  with  the  thing  signified,  it  could  not  serve  as  a 
sign.  And  when,  from  tactual  things  as  they  seem  to  the  Lock- 
ian  to  be  directly  given  in  the  sense,  science  passes  to  tactual 
things  as  they  are  conceived  to  be,  there  is  a  new  distinction  be- 
tween sign  and  thing  signified,  and  a  new  distinction  between 
appearance  and  reality.  Things  as  they  are  conceived  to  be, 
furnish  a  better  explanation  of  the  system  of  things  as  a  whole, 
and  hence  they  are  regarded  as  more  real.  If  now  it  be  discov- 
ered that  science  has  fallen  into  error,  and  that  tactual  things  as 
it  conceived  them  to  be,  do  not  render  more  complete  and  consist- 
ent the  system  of  our  experiences  as  a  whole,  the  reality  of  these 
tactual  things  will  have  to  be  repudiated.  They  must  be  cast 
out  of  the  system,  and  their  real  existence  denied.  But  in  that 
case  we  are  left  with  the  reality  we  had  before  we  put  our  faith 
in  these  things.  The  system  of  our  experiences  remains,  to  be 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  159 

sure,  a  very  imperfect  system,  but  then  we  are  at  liberty  to  make 
new  efforts  to  render  it  more  complete.  The  goal  towards  which 
all  such  efforts  are  directed  is  the  attainment  of  a  complete  and 
wholly  harmonious  system.  Such  a  system  is  what  we  mean  by 
ultimate  reality. 

But  here  we  are  confronted  with  a  very  significant  problem. 
Is  it  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  science  should  attain 
to  —  not  reality,  for  reality  in  some  sense  is  attainable  even  by 
the  unscientific  —  but  ultimate  reality,  a  reality  which  cannot,  in 
its  turn,  be  relegated  to  the  subordinate  place  of  appearance  ?  The 
world  is  spread  out  in  space.  It  exists  in  time.  Both  space  and 
time  we  conceive  to  be  infinitely  divisible,  which  means  that  we 
conceive  that  no  portion  of  either  is  so  small  that  it  is  not  com- 
posed of  portions  still  smaller.  If,  then,  science  rests,  let  us  say, 
in  the  atom,  and  takes  this  for  its  ultimate  unit  in  the  explanation 
of  the  mechanism  of  nature,  it  rests  in  what  cannot  be  regarded 
as  ultimate  in  any  absolute  sense  of  that  word.  The  size  of  an 
atom  appears  to  be  as  legitimate  an  object  of  investigation  as  the 
size  of  a  planet.  It  is  not  apparent  why  an  investigation  into 
the  intimate  structure  of  matter,  which  results  in  the  atom,  should 
not  be  continued  as  an  investigation  into  the  intimate  structure 
of  the  atom  itself.  How  shall  we  account  for  the  properties  of 
the  atom,  and  explain  its  ability  to  play  the  role  assigned  to  it 
in  the  mechanism  of  nature?  That  the  need  for  such  an  exten- 
sion of  our  knowledge  has  been  felt  by  students  of  physical 
science  has  of  late  years  been  made  sufficiently  evident. 

Again :  the  description  of  the  changes  which  take  place  in  the 
physical  world  we  conceive  as  a  description  of  occurrences  in 
time.  If  time  be  infinitely  divisible,  there  can  theoretically  be  no 
limit  to  the  degree  of  minuteness  with  which  such  occurrences 
may  be  described.  We  may,  it  is  true,  describe  a  series  of  occur- 
rences roughly  by  indicating  a  few  of  the  most  striking  or  of  the 
most  interesting  stages  in  the  process  in  question.  This  we  do 
when  we  relate  a  tale  of  adventure,  or  give  an  account  of  the 
passing  of  a  procession.  But  such  a  description  resembles  a  de- 
scription of  the  solar  system  which  stops  with  the  sun,  the  planets, 
and  their  satellites.  It  is  only  the  gross  anatomy  of  the  machine 
that  has  been  given.  The  occurrences  which  we  loosely  indicate 
we  conceive  to  be  made  up  of,  and  interconnected  by,  other  occur- 
rences, which  in  their  turn  may  be  analyzed,  etc.  How  can  we 


160  The  External  World 

regard  the  description  at  any  given  stage  as  ultimate,  and  as  giv- 
ing us  a  final  account  of  what  has  really  taken  place  ? 

Space  and  time  are  the  warp  and  woof  of  that  "  invisible  net " 
in  which  we  conceive  the  real  world  to  have  its  being.  I  shall, 
hence,  turn  to  an  examination  of  these,  and  shall  make  no  apology 
for  discussing  them  at  considerable  length. 

But  before  I  bring  this  chapter  to  a  close,  it  seems  necessary 
for  me  to  take  up  again  and  to  modify,  in  the  light  of  the  fore- 
going, the  provisional  statement,  that  a  sensation  is  known  to  be 
such  from  the  fact  that  it  takes  its  place  among  those  elements 
of  our  experience  which  so  connect  themselves  together  as  to  form 
what  we  recognize  as  the  system  of  material  things.1 

Has  it  not  been  shown  that  a  man  may  recognize  a  multitude 
of  experiences  to  be  sensations,  without  being  compelled  to 
regard  them  as  constituents  of  the  external  world  at  all?  And 
has  it  not  been  shown  that  he  may  believe  in  an  external  world 
which  can  never  be  given  as  sensation  —  the  unperceived  world 
of  atoms  and  molecules?  It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  statement 
should  be  modified.  How  shall  we  modify  it? 

We  must  remember  that  all  our  scientific  constructions  are 
based,  in  the  end,  on  the  common  experience  of  things  with 
which  we  are  familiar.  From  this  we  must  set  out  in  every 
attempt  to  increase  our  knowledge  and  to  render  it  more  accurate. 
In  common  life,  the  things  about  us  are  the  real  things,  i.e.  the 
real  things  are  constituted  by  sensational  experiences.  When  the 
plain  man  distinguished  between  the  faint  patch  of  color,  as  ap- 
pearance, and  the  house  seen  from  a  nearer  point,  as  reality,  both 
appearance  and  reality  are  —  each  in  its  turn  — to  be  accepted  as 
experiences  of  an  external  world,  and  to  be  regarded  as  constituted 
by  sensational  elements. 

Now,  when,  with  the  scientist,  we  come  to  regard  colors,  odors, 
tastes,  etc.,  as  subjective,  and  accept  a  real  external  world,  not 
immediately  perceived  at  all,  to  which  such  elements  are  denied, 
we  have  passed  beyond  the  relatively  simple  construction  with 
which  we  stop  in  common  life.  But  it  should  be  remarked  that 
all  the  elements  which  enter  into  this  more  elaborate  construction, 
subjective  elements  as  well  as  those  which  represent  the  supposed 
external  reality,  hold  the  same  sort  of  relations  to  each  other  that 

i  Chapter  VI. 


Significance  of  the  Distinction  161 

are  held  by  the  elements  that  constitute  the  world  as  perceived  by 
the  plain  man. 

Let  us,  then,  modify  the  above-mentioned  statement  by  saying 
that  a  sensation,  to  be  recognized  as  such,  must  belong  to  the  one 
system  with  the  elements  in  which  the  world  of  material  things  is 
revealed.  Even  this  statement  does  some  injustice  to  the  word 
"sensation,"  as  the  reader  will  see  when  he  comes  to  Chapter 
XXIII ;  but  he  will  then  see  also,  I  hope,  that  I  have  had  good 
reason  for  using  the  word  "  sensation  "  as  I  have  done  in  this  and 
the  three  preceding  chapters.  There  seemed  to  be  no  better  word 
to  use.  And  with  this  I  must  leave  the  subject  for  the  present. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   KANTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF   SPACE 

THE  plain  man  is  apt  to  think  of  space  as  a  real  something  be- 
yond consciousness,  in  which  the  material  things  which  he  sees  and 
feels  exist  and  move.  A  little  questioning  reveals  clearly  that, 
concerning  the  nature  of  this  something,  he  has  the  vaguest  ideas. 
It  is  not  matter,  and  it  is  not  like  matter  ;  but  it  undoubtedly  exists, 
and  it  is  plainly  indispensable  to  the  existence  of  material  things. 
He  hesitates  to  affirm  that  it  may  properly  be  called  a  "  thing  "  at 
all  ;  but,  "  thing  "  or  not,  he  is  sure  that  it  exists,  and  believes  that 
it  would  continue  to  exist  even  if  every  material  thing  were  anni- 
hilated. 

Touching  some  of  the  properties  of  this  perplexing  something, 
however,  he  regards  himself  as  having  very  definite  bits  of  infor- 
mation. Space  is  three-dimensional  ;  it  is  homogeneous  in  all  its 
parts ;  it  is  infinite  in  extent ;  every  portion  of  it  is  infinitely  divis- 
ible. It  is,  in  other  words,  an  infinite  continuum,  which  must  be 
granted  real  existence  if  the  world  of  matter  is  to  be  allowed  any 
reality  at  all,  and  is  not  to  be  reduced  to  a  mere  semblance  of  a 
world,  an  unreal  dream. 

We  shall  see  later  that  there  is  much  truth,  as  well  as  some  mis- 
conception, in  the  plain  man's  views  touching  the  nature  of  space. 
One  thing  we  may  object  to  at  the  outset,  and  that  is  the  assump- 
tion that  space  is  a  something  quite  beyond  consciousness,  and 
hence,  quite  cut  off,  as  reflection  shows  that  all  such  things  must 
be,  from  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge.  We  would  do  the  geometer 
little  good  by  granting  him,  as  the  sphere  in  which  he  is  to  exercise 
his  activity,  an  unknowable,  unredeemed  by  even  the  gleams  of 
meaning  which  are  usually  involuntarily  allotted  to  unknowables. 
The  plain  man  stands,  as  I  have  in  earlier  papers  pointed  out,  upon 
the  psychological  standpoint,  assuming  an  external  world  wholly 
cut  off  from  his  knowledge,  and  yet  somehow  known  to  him.  Re 

162 


The  Kantian  Doctrine  of  Space  163 

has  grasped  dimly  the  distinction  of  subjective  and  objective,  and 
he  expresses  himself  inconsistently.  He  must  not  be  taken  wholly 
at  his  word.  But  so  much  has  been  said  on  the  absurdity  of  assum- 
ing a  world  wholly  beyond  consciousness  and  not  made  of  "  con- 
sciousness-stuff," that  I  shall  assume  that  I  need  not  discuss  this 
in  approaching  the  subject  of  space  and  time. 

I  propose  to  examine,  as  briefly  as  I  may,  the  two  leading  forms 
of  doctrine  which  have  been  advanced  in  modern  times  touching 
the  nature  of  space  and  time,  and  which  to  this  day  dispute  the 
field  between  them.  These  I  shall  call  the  Kantian  and  the  Berke- 
leian,  using  these  appellations  in  rather  a  broad  sense  to  indicate 
types  of  doctrine,  and  without  meaning  to  make  either  philosopher 
responsible  for  later  additions  to,  or  alterations  in,  the  structure 
which  he  reared  upon  the  foundations  that  he  himself  laid  down. 

Neither  doctrine  quite  falls  into  the  vulgar  error  of  making 
space  and  time  "  things,"  and  neither  regards  them  as  "  external " 
in  the  peculiar  sense  of  the  word  to  which  I  have  alluded  above. 
In  both  doctrines  space  and  time  are  treated  as  "  form  "  and  not  as 
"matter,"  i.e.  as  the  arrangement,  the  system  of  relations,  which 
obtains  between  certain  contents  of  consciousness,  and  not  as  those 
contents  themselves.  The  two  doctrines  have  a  good  deal  in  com- 
mon, but  they  are,  nevertheless,  marked  by  differences  of  no  small 
importance  ;  and  the  one  which  has  had  the  more  general  acceptance 
precipitates  its  adherents  into  difficulties  so  great  and  so  hopeless 
that  it  seems  surprising  that  they  have  not  incited  to  a  more  wide- 
spread disaffection  and  a  final  revolt.  This  doctrine  is  the  Kantian, 
and  to  it  we  will  now  turn  our  attention. 

We  will  first  take  up  Space.  According  to  the  Kantian  doc- 
trine, our  knowledge  of  space  is  not  a  something  at  which  we 
arrive  as  the  result  of  an  elaboration  of  our  experiences.  Space  is 
not  a  construct  for  which  our  original  experiences  merely  furnish 
the  data.  It  is  the  necessary  "  form "  of  the  intuitions  of  the 
external  sense,  and  is  given  complete  in  every  such  intuition. 
Kant  held  that:  (1)  Space  is  a  necessary  "form"  of  thought,  and, 
hence,  we  cannot  conceive  the  possibility  of  the  non-existence  of 
space,  although  we  can  easily  conceive  of  the  non-existence  of  ob- 
jects in  space;  (2)  we  can  represent  to  ourselves  but  one  space, 
of  which  all  spaces  are  parts ;  from  which  it  follows  that  space 
cannot  be  conceived  as  limited  ;  (3)  all  space  is  composed  of 
spaces ;  that  is,  space  is  infinitely  divisible,  and  that  which  fills 


164  The  External  World 

space,  the  "thing"  given  in  sense-intuition,  must  be  infinitely 
divisible,  too.1 

In  criticising  the  Kantian  doctrine,  it  is  necessary  to  distin- 
guish clearly  between  what  may  be  implied  in  regarding  space 
simply  as  the  "  form  "  of  certain  intuitive  experiences  —  as  the 
"  formal "  element  which,  in  union  with  the  "  material  "  element, 
constitutes  these  experiences  —  and  what  may  be  supposed  to  fol- 
low from  the  assumption  that  space  is  a  necessary  "form  "  of  thought, 
of  such  a  nature  that  we  are  compelled  to  think  space  as  infinite, 
infinitely  divisible,  and  incapable  of  being  thought  as  non-existent. 

To  make  this  distinction  clear,  I  will  take  a  concrete  instance. 
In  looking  at  the  table  before  me,  I  am  conscious  of  a  complex  of 
color-sensations.  This  Kant  would  have  called  a  "manifold  of 
sense."  In  this  complex  I  can  distinguish  between  "form"  and 
"  matter,"  i.e.  between  sensational  elements  and  their  arrangement. 
I  may  regard  the  "  form  "  in  my  complex  as  something  equally 
original  with  the  "matter,"  and,  if  I  choose,  may  attempt  to 
account  for  it  by  saying  that  it  is  due  to  the  nature  of  the  mind  — 
that  in  this  way  and  in  no  other  must  the  mind  arrange  its  sensa- 
tions of  color.  Bearing  in  mind  what  psychologists  tell  us  about 
the  importance  of  sensations  of  touch  and  movement,  and  the  way 
in  which  other  sensations  come  to  stand  as  signs  of  these,  we  may 
amend  the  above  by  remarking  that  we  are  really  concerned  with  a 
tactual  thing  for  which  the  visual  complex  under  discussion  stands 
as  a  sign ;  but  that  will  not  affect  the  distinction  which  has  been 
drawn  between  "form"  and  "matter."  We  still  have  to  do  with 
a  complex  in  which  the  two  elements  are  distinguishable,  and  we 
should  not  forget  just  what  we  mean  by  "form"  when  we  are 
drawing  the  distinction.  It  is  nothing  occult  or  mysterious.  It  is 
a  certain  element  in  a  given  experienced  content,  and  nothing  else. 
In  the  given  instance,  it  is  the  arrangement  of  the  tactual  sensa- 
tions which  we  have  in  mind  when  we  say  that  we  see  the  table.2 

1  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Transcendental  ^Esthetic,  §§  2,  3,  and  4  ;  Anti- 
nomies I  and  II,  and  Observations. 

2  It  will  be  seen  that  I  treat  "form  "  and  "  matter  "  as  irreducible  elements,  as 
does  the  Kantian.     The  best  argument  for  the  opposite  view  that  I  know  is  con- 
tained in  Professor  James's  "  Psychology  "  (Chapter  XX,  pp.  149-152),  but  I  do  not 
find  it  wholly  convincing.     I  wish,  however,  to  point  out  that  the  argument  con- 
tained in  these  papers  in  no  wise  hinges  upon  the  decision  given  to  this  question. 
Whether   "form"    be   ultimately  distinct   from,   or  identical  with,   sensation,  is 
something  one  may  leave  undecided  while  following  my  argument. 


The  Kantian  Doctrine  of  Space  165 

But  the  space  given  us  in  such  an  intuition  is  limited.  It  is 
coextensive  with  the  "matter"  of  which  it  is  the  "form,"  and  is 
not  a  something  which  extends  beyond  it.  It  is  limited  because 
the  whole  complex  is  limited,  and,  judging  from  this  experience 
alone,  there  appears  to  be  no  more  reason  for  assuming  the  formal 
element  to  be  infinitely  extended  than  for  assuming  the  material  to 
be  so.  If  I  were  intuitively  conscious  of  an  infinite  extent  of  color 
(or  tactual)  sensation,  I  should  have  an  intuition  of  infinite  space 
(the  formal  element  in  this  experience),  for  both  "form"  and 
"  matter  "  would  be  limitless.  Or  if,  failing  this,  I  were  conscious 
of  a  certain  limited  amount  of  color-sensation,  and  were,  further, 
immediately  conscious  of  a  boundless  space  extending  from  the 
limits  of  the  bit  of  space  filled  by  the  sensation  (assuming  that  one 
may  be  conscious  of  pure  space),  then,  too,  I  should  have  an  intui- 
tion of  infinite  space.  But  to  extract  an  intuition  of  infinite  space 
from  the  patch  of  sensation  with  which  I  started  out  is  an  impos- 
sibility. I  can  succeed  in  doing  so  only  by  juggling  with  the 
word  "  intuition."  The  statement  that  infinite  space  is  given  in  in- 
tuition is  palpably  absurd  when  the  word  "  intuition  "  is  taken  in  its 
strict  sense.  It  does  not  mean  that  we  have  reason  to  believe  that 
space  is  infinite,  nor  that  we  are  forced  to  think  that  space  is  infi- 
nite. It  means  that  we  are  immediately  conscious  of  every  part  of 
space,  as  I  am  conscious  of  the  bit  of  space  within  the  limits  of  this 
patch  of  sensation.  Can  any  one  seriously  maintain  so  absurd  a 
doctrine  ? 

It  may,  however,  be  maintained  that  we  have  an  intuitive 
knowledge  of  infinite  space  in  a  somewhat  different  sense  of  the 
word  "  intuitive."  That  is,  it  may  be  held  that  we  know  intuitively 
that  space  is  infinite.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  are  immediately 
conscious  of  infinite  space,  but  merely  that  we  know  space  to  be 
infinite,  and  know  it  without  being  compelled  to  prove  it  in  any 
way.  It  is  a  "necessity  of  thought."  An  interesting  chapter 
might  be  written  on  what  have  commended  themselves  to  the  phi- 
losophers of  past  ages  as  necessities  of  thought,  revelations  of  the 
inner  light,  etc.  But  I  leave  this  tempting  subject,  and  con- 
tent myself  with  pointing  out  that  it  is  a  counsel  of  prudence  to  be 
oracular  regarding  necessities  of  thought,  and  to  advance  them 
without  attempting  to  prove  that  they  must  be  accepted  as  such. 
Those  who  have  attempted  to  prove  that  we  must  accept  the 
infinity  of  space  as  a  necessity  of  thought,  or  as  an  intuition  in 


166  The  External  World 

the  second  sense  of  the  word,  have  offered  highly  defective  evi- 
dence of  the  fact.  "  We  are,"  says  Hamilton,  "  altogether  unable 
to  conceive  space  as  bounded  —  as  finite  :  that  is,  as  a  whole  beyond 
which  there  is  no  further  space."  1  "  We  find  ourselves,"  echoes 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  "  totally  unable  to  imagine  bounds  beyond 
which  there  is  no  space."  2  It  is  inferred  from  this  that  we  must 
think  of  space  as  infinite. 

But  what  is  it  that  these  philosophers  have  invited  us  to 
attempt?  When  scrutinized,  Hamilton's  argument  is  seen  to  be 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  this :  We  are  altogether  unable  to  con- 
ceive space  as  bounded — as  finite;  that  is,  as  a  whole  in  the  space 
beyond  which  there  is  no  further  space.  The  word  "  beyond  "  in  his 
argument  has  no  meaning  whatever  except  as  it  refers  to  space 
beyond,  and  Hamilton  has  simply  set  up  a  contradiction  for  us  to 
tilt  at.  He  asks  us  to  imagine  a  limit,  with  a  space  beyond  it,  and 
at  the  same  time  no  space  beyond  it.  When  we  have  had  a  "go" 
at  this,  and  feel  low-spirited  over  the  result,  he  tells  us  with  an  air 
of  mystery  that  we  are  in  the  clutches  of  a  "  necessity  of  thought." 
Whatever  may  be  said  for  or  against  the  necessity  of  thinking 
space  as  infinite,  it  is  clear  that  this  demonstration  is  a  mere  quibble. 
It  has  been,  however,  a  very  popular  quibble. 

The  doctrine  that  space  is  a  necessity  of  thought  in  such  a 
sense  that,  although  we  can  annihilate  in  thought  all  objects  in 
space,  we  cannot  conceive  the  non-existence  of  space  itself  —  this 
doctrine  rests  upon  a  similar  misconception.  There  seems  no 
reason  at  all  why,  if  by  space  given  in  intuition  we  mean  only  the 
formal  element  in  a  given  sensational  experience,  we  should  not  be 
able  to  think  away  the  space  with  the  "  matter  "  of  which  it  is  the 
"form."  But  we  must  not  set  ourselves  a  contradictory  task,  and 
erect  a  theory  over  our  failure  to  accomplish  it.  "  We  can  never 
represent  to  ourselves  the  non-existence  of  space,"  says  Kant, 
"although  we  can  easily  conceive  that  there  are  no  objects  in 
space."  3  But  what  does  one  do  when  one  tries  to  imagine  the 
non-existence  of  space  ?  One  first  clears  space  of  objects,  and  then 
one  tries  to  clear  space  of  space  in  somewhat  the  same  way.  We 
try  to  "  think  space  away  "  as  we  express  it,  which  does  not  mean 

1  "  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,"  XXXVIII.  2  "  First  Principles,"  III,  §  15. 

3  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Transcendental  TEsthetic,  §  2  :  "  Man  kann  sich 
niemals  eine  Vorstellung  davon  maclien,  dass  kein  Raurn  sei,  ob  man  sich  gleich 
ganz  wohl  denken  kann,  dass  keine  Gegenstiinde  darin  angetroffen  werden." 


The  Kantian  Doctrine  of  Space  167 

that  we  turn  all  thought  of  space  out  of  our  mind,  but  that  we  try 
to  think  it  away  as  we  have  thought  objects  away,  by  clearing  it 
away  from  something,  and  having  that  something  left. 

The  attempt  must,  of  course,  fail ;  but  then  it  is  foolish  to 
make  the  attempt.  That  this  is  what  is  commonly  attempted  I 
think  certain.  It  is  what  I  did,  with  a  good  deal  of  satisfaction  to 
myself,  during  the  years  when  Kant's  position  seemed  to  me  well 
taken,  and  it  is  what  I  have  an  impulse  to  do  now  when  I  read  the 
above-cited  sentence  from  the  "  Critique. "  So  far  as  I  can  learn  from 
their  own  accounts  of  their  experience,  it  is  what  others  try  to  do 
when  they  find  it  impossible  to  think  space  as  non-existent.  They 
try  to  annihilate  space,  and  yet  keep  in  mind,  so  to  speak,  the 
place  where  it  was.  They  try  to  make  a  Vorstellung  of  the  non- 
existence  of  space,  i.e.  to  keep  before  the  mind  some  intuition  of 
the  external  sense,  and  yet  annihilate  its  "  form,"  which  is  mani- 
festly self-contradictory.  We  have  here  one  of  the  countless 
instances  of  what  may  be  called  "  the  philosophic  fallacy  "  par 
excellence.  It  is  the  special  weakness  of  the  philosopher  to  say  "  I 
go,"  and  then  not  go ;  to  set  about  abstracting  from  something, 
and  then  not  abstract  from  it ;  to  offer  to  clear  the  ground,  and 
then  to  leave  an  array  of  stumps  which  must  trip  up  the  feet  of 
the  unwary. 

The  deductions  which  have  been  made  from  these  supposed 
necessities  of  thought  are  rather  startling,  and  should  in  them- 
selves, I  think,  be  sufficient  to  arouse  a  suspicion  of  the  founda- 
tions upon  which  they  rest.  In  the  proof  of  the  Antithesis  of 
his  famous  First  Antinomy,  Kant  offers  an  a  priori  demonstration 
that  the  sensible  world  must  be  conceived  of  as  unlimited  in  ex- 
tent. To  be  sure,  he  also  offers  what  he  regards  as  an  equally 
satisfactory  proof  of  the  contradictory  proposition ;  but  as  readers 
of  Kant  know,  this  does  not  mean  that  he  believes  his  argument 
to  be  defective.  The  argument  for  the  infinitude  of  the  sensible 
world,  which  he  brings  forward  as  logically  unexceptionable,  is 
as  follows :  — 

Space  is  infinite ;  hence  the  sensible  world,  if  it  be  limited,  must 
lie  in  the  infinite  void.  But  space  is  not  an  object;  it  is  only 
the  "  form  "  of  possible  objects.  Hence  space  may  be  limited  by 
phenomena,  but  phenomena  cannot  be  limited  by  an  empty 
space  beyond  them.  It  is,  therefore,  impossible  that  a  void  space 
should  project  beyond  the  limits  of  a  finite  world  of  sense.  The 


168  The  External  World 

space  beyond  any  given  limit  must,  then,  be  filled  space,  and  we 
must  conceive  of  the  sensible  world  as  infinite  in  extent. 

It  is  clear  that  in  this  argument  Kant  plays  fast  and  loose  with 
the  reality  of  space.  He  seems  to  make  it  a  thing,  or  something 
like  a  thing,  and  yet  not  precisely  a  thing.  We  have  seen  that 
he  regards  it  as  real  enough  to  persist  in  remaining  when  we 
think  away  all  objects  in  it.  Here  we  see  that  he  regards  it  as 
real  enough  to  be  limited  by  phenomena,  if  it  be  a  space  within 
the  world  of  sense,  but  not  as  real  enough  to  limit  phenomena  by 
extending  beyond.  His  argument  is,  in  effect:  Space  is  infinite 
(assumed  as  an  intuition  in  the  second  sense  of  the  word)  ;  it  is 
not  enough  of  a  thing  to  exist  by  itself ;  it  must,  then,  be  filled  in 
with  something ;  this  something  must  be  infinite  as  space  is ; 
ergo,  the  world  is  unlimited.  These  are  scholastic  subtleties,  and 
it  seems  odd  to  me,  at  least,  that  they  should  have  been  advanced 
by  so  acute  a  thinker  as  Kant ;  and  yet  these  reasonings  seem  to 
appeal  to  some  vigorous  minds  even  in  our  day. 

It  is  always  safe  to  be  on  one's  guard  against  so-called  neces- 
sities of  thought  and  the  deductions  which  are  drawn  from  them. 
Those  who  have  elected  to  regard  space  as  a  "  necessary  form  " 
of  external  intuition,  or  as  a  "  necessity  of  thought,"  may  easily 
be  misled  by  these  phrases  into  accepting  as  self-evident  what  is 
not  merely  not  self-evident,  but  is  even  founded  upon  very  question- 
able reasonings.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  no  doubt  that  the  statement 
that  space  is  infinite  seems  to  be  a  reasonable  one  even  to  the  man 
who  regards  it  as  by  no  means  certain  that  the  universe  of  matter 
is  infinite.  What  we  mean  by  the  statement  that  space  is  infinite, 
and  why  it  commends  itself  as  a  reasonable  one,  I  shall  try  to 
make  clear  later.  We  shall  see  that,  to  explain  this  general  readi- 
ness to  regard  space  as  infinite,  we  are  not  forced  to  fall  back  upon 
such  doubtful  arguments  as  the  impossibility  of  thinking  a  space 
beyond  which  there  is  no  space,  or  the  impossibility  of  imagining 
the  non-existence  of  space. 

So  much  for  our  intuitive  knowledge  of  space  as  infinite  and 
"indestructible."  Intuitions  of  this  kind  are  no  better  than  the 
fateful  horse  which  brought  ruin  to  Troy.  They  may  be  had  as 
a  gift,  and  they  are  big  with  disaster  to  those  who  receive  them. 
But  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  intuitions  in  the  first  sense  of  the 
word,  may  we  not  escape  such  difficulties  ?  In  the  table  which 
I  perceive  before  me,  I  distinguish  "  matter  "  and  "  form."  The 


The  Kantian  Doctrine  of  Space  169 

"  form  "  —  the  system  of  relations  —  is  as  immediately  given  as  the 
"matter."  In  holding  -that  some  space,  at  least,  is  directly  given 
in  intuition  we  do  not,  hence,  seem  to  be  juggling  with  the  word 
or  using  it  in  an  ambiguous  sense. 

But  when  we  examine  more  narrowly  what  is  implied  in  such 
an  intuition  of  space,  we  are  at  once  confronted  with  certain  vener- 
able difficulties  that  have  exercised  the  ingenuity  of  mankind 
almost  from  the  beginning  of  reflective  thought.  Space  we  regard 
as  infinitely  divisible.  Every  space,  however  small,  must,  then,  be 
made  up  of  spaces,  never  of  points.  It  follows  that  what  fills  space 
must  also  be  infinitely  divisible. 

Thus  every  "  intuition  of  the  external  sense  "  must  be  infinitely 
divisible.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  when  we  divide  up  into  its 
parts  any  given  sense-experience,  we  speedily  come  to  what  appears 
to  be  no  longer  composite.  A  line  perceived  by  sight,  for  example, 
does  not  appear  to  be  composed  of  an  infinite  number  of  line- 
portions.  Subdivision  seems  to  result  in  visual  points  not  composed 
of  parts.  The  minimum  sensibile,  as  it  has  been  called,  is  not  di- 
rectly perceived  to  have  part  out  of  part. 

So  much  is  admitted  even  by  those  who  maintain  that  we  have 
an  intuition  of  space  as  infinitely  divisible.  The  minimum  sensible 
does  not  present  itself  in  consciousness  as  "  a  manifold  with  its 
parts  external  to  each  other."  But,  says  Kant,  "since  we  cannot 
reason  from  the  non-consciousness  of  such  a  manifold  to  the 
absolute  impossibility  of  its  existence  in  any  intuition  of  an  object, 
and  since  it  is  the  latter  that  is  necessary  to  absolute  simplicity,  it 
follows  that  this  cannot  be  inferred  from  any  perception  what- 
ever." ! 

Here  Kant  has  evidently  fallen  back  upon  the  second  sense  of 
the  word  "intuition,"  even  while  discussing  intuition  in  the  first 
sense.  We  are  not  directly  conscious  of  an  experience  as  infinitely 
divisible,  but  it  is  assumed  that  we  have  an  intuition  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  so.  As  in  the  case  of  the  infinite  extent  of  space,  so  in 
the  case  of  its  infinite  divisibility,  the  statement  that  something  is 
given  in  intuition  amounts  only  to  saying  that  we  know  this  or  that 
about  something.  We  may  well  pause  before  accepting  as  an  in- 
dubitable deliverance  of  consciousness  such  a  supposed  bit  of 
knowledge  ;  we  certainly  seem  justified  in  asking  how  we  know 
that  our  experiences  of  extension  are  thus  infinitely  divisible.  If 
1  Op  cit.t  Second  Antinomy,  Antithesis. 


170  The  External  World 

we  do  not  immediately  perceive  them  to  be  infinitely  divisible,  does 
not  our  conviction  rest  upon  an  inference  of  some  sort?  How 
shall  such  an  inference  be  justified? 

Of  course,  something  may  be  said  for  Kant's  statement  that  we 
cannot  reason  from  the  non-consciousness  of  a  "  manifold  "  to  the 
impossibility  of  its  existence  in  a  given  intuition,  provided  that  his 
words  be  understood  with  a  certain  limitation.  Some  things 
exist  in  consciousness  clearly  and  definitely,  and  of  some  we  are 
very  indefinitely  conscious.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  a  given 
content  of  consciousness  may  be  composite,  and  yet  may  not  be' 
recognized  as  such.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  affirm  that  an  experience 
in  which  we  do  not  seem  to  be  able  to  perceive  part  out  of  part 
may  really  consist  of  parts ;  and  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  affirm 
that  it  must  consist  of  such  parts,  and  that  the  parts  of  which  it 
consists  must  in  their  turn  be  composite,  and  so  on,  ad  infinitum. 
The  last  statement  is  an  exceedingly  bold  one,  and  should  not  be 
allowed  to  pass  without  a  demand  for  proof  of  some  sort.  Shall 
we  accept  it  as  true  merely  because  we  are  told  that  it  is  a  "  neces- 
sity of  thought "  ? 

That  Kant  did  not  appeal  to  intuition,  in  the  first  sense  of  the 
word,  he  has  himself  made  evident.  "  Against  the  principle  of  the 
infinite  divisibility  of  matter,"  he  writes,1  "  whose  ground  of  proof 
is  purely  mathematical,  the  monadists  bring  objections,  which  lay 
themselves  open  to  suspicion  from  the  mere  fact  that  they  do  not 
admit  the  clearest  mathematical  proofs  as  giving  an  insight  into 
the  constitution  of  space,  in  so  far  as  this  is  really  the  formal  con- 
dition of  the  possibility  of  all  matter.  ...  If  we  listen  to  them,  we 
shall  have  to  conceive,  not  merely  the  mathematical  point  — 
which,  though  simple,  is  not  a  part,  but  only  the  limit  of  a  space  — 
but  also  physical  points,  which  are  likewise  simple,  but  have  the 
advantage,  as  parts  of  space,  of  filling  space  by  their  mere  aggre- 
gation. I  shall  not  here  repeat  the  common  and  clear  refutations 
of  this  absurdity,  which  exist  in  plenty ;  for  it  is  wholly  in  vain  to 
try  to  quibble  away  the  evidence  of  mathematics  by  means  of 
merely  discursive  conceptions.  I  will  only  remark,  that  if  philos- 
ophy here  falls  into  chicanery  in  dealing  with  mathematics,  it  is 
because  he  forgets  that  in  this  question  one  is  concerned  only  with 
phenomena  and  their  conditions.  It  is  not  enough  to  find  for  the 
pure  conception  of  the  composite  the  conception  of  the  simple; 
1  Op.  cit.,  Second  Antinomy,  Observations  on  the  Antithesis. 


The  Kantian  Doctrine  of  Space  171 

for  the  intuition  of  the  composite  (matter)  one  must  find  the  intui- 
tion of  the  simple.  This  is  by  the  laws  of  our  sensibility,  and, 
hence,  in  the  case  of  objects  of  our  senses,  wholly  impossible." 

Here  Kant  takes  a  double  position,  if  I  may  so  express 
it.  In  the  closing  words  of  the  extract  he  falls  back  upon  the 
assertion  that  the  "  laws  of  our  sensibility "  make  it  impossible 
that  the  absolutely  simple  should  be  given  in  intuition.  That  is, 
he  simply  invokes  the  magic  of  an  "  intuition  "  in  the  second  sense 
of  the  word.  But  he  has  admitted,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  simple 
may  apparently  be  given  in  intuition.  He  accepts  the  minimum 
isensibile  recognized  by  Berkeley  and  Hume  before  him,  merely 
arguing  that  mathematics  furnishes  proof  that  this  is  a  false  and 
deceitful  minimum,  a  composite  masquerading  in  the  attire  of 
simplicity.  Kant  thus  maintains :  (1)  That  what  is  given  in 
intuition  must  be  composite,  for,  by  the  law  of  our  sensibility, 
nothing  can  be  given  in  intuition  that  is  not  composite  —  which 
statement,  if  we  accept  it  as  true,  ought  to  close  the  whole  ques- 
tion ;  and  (2)  he  argues  that  it  is  subversive  of  mathematics  to 
deny  the  infinite  divisibility  of  what  is  given  in  intuition.  These 
positions  may  be  met  by  maintaining:  (1)  That  the  statement 
that  it  is  a  law  of  our  sensibility  that  the  simple  cannot  be  given 
in  intuition  is  either  a  baseless  assumption,  or  it  is  based  upon  the 
mathematical  reasonings  to  which  Kant  refers ;  and  (2)  that  the 
opposing  doctrine  is  seen  to  be  by  no  means  subversive  of  mathe- 
matical reasonings,  when  their  significance  is  clearly  understood. 

What  may  be  said  upon  these  points  will  be  considered  later. 
Before  passing  on  to  this  I  wish  to  make  clear  the  difficulties 
above  alluded  to,  which  attach  to  the  Kantian  doctrine,  and  which 
should  be  honestly  faced  by  those  who  elect  to  become  its  adhe- 
rents. It  will  not  do  to  give  them  a  perfunctory  glance,  call  them 
logical  puzzles,  and  straightway  forget  them.  As  we  shall  see,  they 
are  deserving  of  most  serious  consideration. 


CHAPTER  XI 

DIFFICULTIES    CONNECTED    WITH    THE    KANTIAN    DOCTRINE 

OF  SPACE 

MORE  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  it  was  argued  by  Zeno  of 
Elea  that  motion  is  impossible,  on  the  ground  that,  since  space  is 
infinitely  divisible,  no  space,  however  small,  can  be  passed  over  by  a 
moving  body.  To  go  from  one  place  to  another,  a  body  would  have 
to  pass  through  an  unlimited  number  of  intermediate  spaces.  That 
is,  it  would  have  to  reach  the  last  term  of  an  unlimited  series,  which 
is  absurd. 

The  more  clearly  this  problem  is  stated,  the  more  evident  it 
seems  to  become  that  the  difficulty  is  insurmountable.  It  appears 
to  arise  out  of  the  very  notion  of  space  and  of  motion  in  space  as 
continuous.  "The  idea  expressed  by  that  word  'continuous,'" 
says  Professor  Clifford,1  "  is  one  of  extreme  importance  ;  it  is  the 
foundation  of  all  exact  science  of  things ;  and  yet  it  is  so  very 
simple  and  elementary  that  it  must  have  been  almost  the  first 
clear  idea  that  we  got  into  our  heads.  It  is  only  this :  I  cannot 
move  this  thing  from  one  position  to  another,  without  making  it 
go  through  an  infinite  number  of  intermediate  positions.  In- 
finite ;  it  is  a  dreadful  word,  I  know,  until  you  find  out  that  you 
are  familiar  with  the  thing  which  it  expresses.  In  this  place  it 
means  that  between  any  two  positions  there  is  some  intermediate 
position ;  between  that  and  either  of  the  others,  again,  there  is 
some  other  intermediate  ;  and  so  on  without  any  end.  Infinite 
means  without  any  end.  If  you  went  on  with  that  work  of  count- 
ing forever,  you  would  never  get  any  further  than  the  beginning 
of  it.  At  last  you  would  only  have  two  positions  very  close 
together,  but  not  the  same ;  and  the  whole  process  might  be  gone 
over  again,  beginning  with  those  as  many  times  as  you  like." 

In  this  extract  Professor  Clifford  plays  directly  into  the  hand 
of  Zeno,  although  it  is  no  part  of  his  purpose  to  support  the  con- 

1  "  Seeing  and  Thinking,"  p.  134. 
172 


Kantian  Difficulties  173 

tention  of  that  philosopher.  He  is  merely  trying  to  make  quite 
clear  what  we  mean  by  calling  space  continuous  ;  and  is  it  not 
generally  admitted  that  space  is  continuous?  But,  then,  how 
can  anything  move  through  space  ?  The  difficulties  that  beset  a 
moving  point  Clifford  has  himself  admirably  exhibited,  and  again 
without  the  slightest  intention  of  unduly  emphasizing  these  diffi- 
culties or  of  denying  the  possibility  of  motion.  He  writes:  *  — 

"  When  a  point  moves,  it  moves  along  some  line  ;  and  you 
may  say  that  it  traces  out  or  describes  the  line.  To  look  at  some- 
thing definite,  let  us  take  the  point  where  this  boundary  of  red  on 
paper  is  cut  by  the  surface  of  water.  I  move  all  about  together. 
Now  you  know  that  between  any  two  positions  of  the  point  there 
is  an  infinite  number  of  intermediate  positions.  Where  are  they 
all  ?  Why,  clearly,  in  the  line  along  which  the  point  moved.  That 
line  is  the  place  where  all  such  points  are  to  be  found." 

" .  .  .It  seems  a  very  natural  thing  to  say  that  space  is  made 
up  of  points.  I  want  you  to  examine  very  carefully  what  this 
means,  and  how  far  it  is  true.  And  let  us  first  take  the  simplest 
case,  and  consider  whether  we  may  safely  say  that  a  line  is  made 
up  of  points.  If  you  think  of  a  very  large  number  —  say,  a 
million — of  points  all  in  a  row,  the  end  ones  being  an  inch  apart, 
then  this  string  of  points  is  altogether  a  different  thing  from  a  line 
an  inch  long.  For  if  you  single  out  two  points  which  are  next 
one  another,  then  there  is  no  point  of  the  series  between  them ; 
but  if  you  take  two  points  on  a  line,  however  close  together  they 
may  be,  there  is  an  infinite  number  of  points  between  them.  The 
two  things  are  different  in  kind,  not  in  degree."2 

"...  When  a  point  moves  along  a  line,  we  know  that  between 
any  two  positions  of  it  there  is  an  infinite  number  (in  this  new 
sense  3)  of  intermediate  positions.  That  is  because  the  motion  is 
continuous.  Each  of  those  positions  is  where  the  point  was  at 
some  instant  or  other.  Between  the  two  end  positions  on  the  line, 
the  point  where  the  motion  began  and  the  point  where  it  stopped, 
there  is  no  point  of  the  line  which  does  not  belong  to  that  series. 
We  have  thus  an  infinite  series  of  successive  positions  of  a  continu- 
ously moving  point,  and  in  that  series  are  included  all  the  points 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  143-144.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  146-147. 

3  Professor  Clifford  has  used  the  word  "  number"  in  two  senses,  a  quantitative 
and  a  qualitative.  By  number  in  the  latter  sense  he  means  simply  "unlimited 
units." 


174  The  External  World 

of  a  certain  piece  of  line-room.  May  we  say,  then,  that  the  line  is 
made  up  of  that  infinite  series  of  points? 

"  Yes ;  if  we  mean  no  more  than  that  the  series  makes  up  the 
points  of  the  line.  But  no,  if  we  mean  that  the  line  is  made  up  of 
those  points  in  the  same  way  that  it  is  made  up  of  a  great  many 
very  small  pieces  of  line.  A  point  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  part 
of  a  line,  in  any  sense  whatever.  It  is  the  boundary  between  two 
parts."1 

Surely  Zeno  would  have  welcomed  all  this  as  directly  estab- 
lishing his  position.  "  When  a  point  moves  along  a  line,  we  know 
that  between  any  two  positions  of  it  there  is  an  infinite  number 
.  .  .  of  intermediate  positions."  "Infinite  means  without  any 
end."  The  positions  with  which  we  are  dealing  are  "the  succes- 
sive positions  of  a  continuously  moving  point."  Hence,  to  com- 
plete its  motion  over  any  given  line  whatever,  the  moving  point 
must  pass,  one  by  one,  an  endless  series  of  positions,  and  must  finish 
with  the  end  position.  If  the  moral  of  this  is  not  that  a  point  can- 
not move  along  a  line,  there  is  no  validity  in  human  reasonings. 

Again :  The  moving  point  must  take,  one  by  one,  the  "  suc- 
cessive positions "  in  the  series.  Even  the  (conscious  or  uncon- 
scious) Kantian  has  his  preference  in  absurdities,  and  rejects  some 
rather  than  others.  Clifford  does  not  conceive  the  point  as  in  two 
positions  at  once,  or  as  making  some  ingenious  flank  movement  by 
means  of  which  it  can  "  scoop  in  "  a  whole  stretch  of  line  simul- 
taneously. It  must  move  along  the  line,  from  end  to  end,  taking 
one  position  at  a  time,  and  taking  them  in  their  order.  It  cannot 
make  jumps,  and  are  not  the  positions  "successive"?  Its  path 
seems  clearly  marked  out  for  it  —  a  smooth  road,  and  without  turn- 
ings. Alas!  the  line  is  "continuous."  The  point  cannot  take 
successive  positions,  for  have  we  not  seen  that  no  position  can 
immediately  succeed  any  other  on  a  continuous  line  ?  "  Between 
any  two  positions  there  is  some  intermediate  position ;  between 
that  and  either  of  the  others,  again,  there  is  some  other  interme- 
diate ;  and  so  on  without  any  end."  Can  any  living  soul  conceive 
the  gait  that  must  be  adopted  by  a  point,  which  must  move  contin- 
uously (without  jumps  ?)  over  a  line,  and  yet  is  debarred  from 
passing  from  any  one  position  to  the  next  in  the  series  ?  It  cannot 
pass  first  to  some  position  which  is  not  the  next,  and  then  get 
around  to  the  next  after  a  while.  That  is  palpably  absurd.  And 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  149-150. 


Kantian  Difficulties  175 

it  cannot  pass  to  the  next  at  once,  for  there  is  no  next.  I  can 
imagine  the  shade  of  Zeno  rubbing  its  hands  over  this  development 
of  his  doctrine.  "  The  way  for  a  point  to  get  on,"  says  Clifford, 
"is  for  it  never  to  take  the  next  step."  "  Of  course  that  means," 
adds  Zeno,  with  ghostly  laughter,  "that  a  point  cannot  get  on 
at  all." 

And  what  shall  we  say  to  the  statement  that,  although  "  all  the 
points  of  a  certain  piece  of  line-room"  are  included  in  the  "in- 
finite series  of  successive  (sic)  positions  of  a  continuously  moving 
point,"  yet  the  line  is  not  made  up  of  these  points,  but  is  made 
up  "  of  a  great  many  very  small  pieces  of  line  "  ?  What  are  these 
small  pieces  of  line,  which  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the  whole 
series  of  points  ?  They  are  not  material  things,  for  we  are  not 
now  discussing  a  bit  of  string  or  a  chalk-mark,  but  we  are  dis- 
cussing a  geometrical  line,  an  aspect  of  space.  What  lies  between 
any  two  points  on  the  line  ?  More  points  for  one  thing.  What 
else?  Bits  of  line.  But  what  are  bits  of  line?  When  a  point 
has  moved  over  a  line,  has  it  done  anything  but  pass  through  a 
series  of  successive  positions  ?  It  seems  reasonable,  at  first  sight, 
to  assume  that  such  a  series  of  positions  is  what  we  mean  by  a 
line.  We  are  informed,  however,  that  a  point  is  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  part  of  a  line  in  any  sense  whatever.  It  is  "  the  boun- 
dary between  two  parts."  Does  the  assumption  of  these  bits  of 
line,  which  are  not  positions,  but  lie  between  positions,  make 
more  comprehensible  the  motion  of  a  point  over  a  line  ? 

Manifestly  not.  If  the  bits  of  line  could  be  supposed  to  take 
up  some  of  the  line-room  in  such  a  way  as  to  reduce  the  number 
of  points,  they  might  be  of  some  help,  but  no  one  supposes  them 
to  do  this.  Bits  of  line  or  no  bits  of  line,  the  moving  point  must 
occupy  successively  all  the  positions  in  an  infinite  series.  And 
if  we  turn  our  attention  from  the  points,  and  confine  it  to  the  bits 
of  line,  we  are  no  better  off.  If  the  number  of  points  is  endless, 
so  is  the  number  of  bits  of  line,  for  these  separate  the  points, 
which  are  only  their  boundaries,  and  we  are  forced  to  ask  our- 
selves how  an  endless  series  of  bits  of  line  can  come  to  an  end  in 
a  last  bit  which  completes  the  line.  It  is  not  a  whit  easier  to 
conceive  of  a  given  finite  line  as  composed  of  bits  of  line,  than  it  is 
to  conceive  of  it  as  composed  of  points,  if  we  once  admit  that  the 
line  in  question  is  infinitely  divisible.  We  have  only  added  a  new 
element  of  mystification.  What  do  we  mean  by  these  mys- 


176  The  External  World 

terious  bits  of  line  ?  Has  the  point  which  is  passing  over  a  series 
of  positions  anything  whatever  to  do  with  them  ?  Do  they  really 
separate  the  positions,  so  that  they  must  be  jumped  in  getting 
along  the  series,  or  does  the  point,  after  all,  meet  nothing  but 
positions,  never  that  which  separates  them? 

The  attempt  is  sometimes  made  to  avoid  the  difficulty  of  as- 
suming that  a  point  moving  over  a  line  can  progressively  exhaust 
an  infinite  series,  by  laying  much  emphasis  upon  the  fact  that  the 
members  of  the  series  are  exceedingly  small,  and  can  be  passed 
over  with  great  rapidity.  Infinitesimal  spaces,  it  is  argued,  are 
passed  over  in  infinitesimal  times,  and  all  these  infinitesimals  are 
included  in  the  finite  space  and  time  of  the  motion.  But  it  must 
be  evident  to  any  one  capable  of  the  least  clearness  of  thought 
that  dwelling  upon  the  size  of  the  members  of  the  series,  in  the 
case  either  of  space  or  of  time,  is  wholly  wide  of  the  mark. 
Whether  things  are  big  or  little,  if  the  supply  of  them  be  truly 
endless,  one  can  never  get  to  the  end  of  the  supply.  The  rapidity 
with  which  the  terms  of  the  series  are  exhausted  has  obviously 
no  effect  in  facilitating  an  approach  to  that  which  cannot,  by 
hypothesis,  exist,  i.e.  to  a  final  term.  The  proposed  solution  of 
the  problem  rests  upon  the  implicit  assumption  that,  provided 
only  things  are  small  enough,  it  is  legitimate  to  reason  about 
them  in  an  incoherent  way,  and  to  make  self-contradictory  state- 
ments. I  know  of  no  way  in  which  this  assumption  can  be  de- 
fended, unless  it  be  by  claiming  that  it  is  an  "  intuition." 

If,  then,  in  order  to  move  a  body,  I  must  reach  the  end  of  an 
endless  series,  I  may  reasonably  conclude  that  I  cannot  move  a 
body.  This  is  as  clear  as  it  is  possible  for  anything  to  be.  No 
exception  can  be  taken  to  Zeno's  argument,  if  the  assumption 
upon  which  it  rests  be  once  granted.  One  is  not  at  liberty  to 
admit  that  there  are  difficulties  connected  with  the  statement  that 
a  point  can  move  along  an  infinitely  divisible  line,  and  to  hold 
that,  in  spite  of  these  difficulties,  the  statement  should  be  ap- 
proved as  being  the  least  objectionable  that  can  be  made  touching 
the  subject.  One  should  bear  in  mind  that  this  amounts  to  saying 
that  what  is  flatly  self-contradictory  and,  hence,  intrinsically 
absurd,  is  at  least  less  objectionable,  as  an  article  of  faith,  than  is 
something  else.  I  wish  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  no  opposing 
doctrine,  try  as  it  may,  can  possibly  be  worse.  At  best  it  can  only 
succeed  in  bem<x  as  bad. 


Kantian  Difficulties  177 

The  difficulties  arising  out  of  the  doctrine  of  the  infinite  divisi- 
bility of  finite  spaces  have  been  so  long  before  the  philosophic 
public  that  it  is  tired  of  them,  and  its  sense  has  grown  deadened 
to  their  significance.  They  are  recognized  ;  they  arouse  a  fugitive 
interest ;  they  are  made  to  yield  a  favorable  occasion  for  a  pleas- 
ing exercise  of  the  ingenuity,  and  then  they  are  put  back  again 
into  their  box  and  their  existence  is  ignored.  They  are  not  taken 
seriously,  and  the  serious  interest  with  which  the  ancients  ap- 
proached them  is  even  characterized  as  pathologic.  But  whether 
we  face  them  or  not,  the  difficulties  are  there  just  the  same. 
They  do  not  become  non-existent  merely  because  they  are  over- 
looked ;  and  it  is  surely  a  crying  disgrace  to  human  reason  that 
a  theory  of  the  nature  of  space  should  complacently  be  accepted 
as  truth,  which  admittedly  runs  into  unresolved  self-contradic- 
tions. So  important  is  it  that  the  reader  should  clearly  realize 
what  is  implied  in  the  Kantian  doctrine,  that  I  will  beg  his  indul- 
gence while  I  set  forth  a  rather  interesting  bit  of  reasoning,  the 
sole  defect  in  which  is  that  it  rests  upon  the  assumption  contained 
in  that  doctrine.  It  is,  in  all  other  respects,  beyond  criticism. 

Let  us  suppose  a  point  A  moving  uniformly  over  a  finite  line 
be,  at  such  a  rate  that  it  will  complete  the  distance  in  one  second. 

^ . . « -c 


Since  the  motion  is  uniform,  the  point  will  pass  over  one-half 
of  the  line  in  half  a  second ;  it  will  pass  over  one-half  of  the  re- 
mainder, or  one-fourth  of  the  line,  in  a  quarter  of  a  second,  etc. 
When  the  point  has  passed  over  the  whole  line,  it  will  have  com- 
pleted the  descending  series :  -|-,  |,  |>  Jg  ...  0. 

We  may  set  aside  for  the  present  purpose  the  "  difficulties " 
connected  with  the  point's  getting  a  start  along  an  infinitely 
divisible  line,  and  with  the  completion  of  an  endless  series  in 
general.  We  will  accept  it  as  a  fact  that  the  line  is  infinitely 
divisible  and  can  be  passed  over,  in  an  infinitely  divisible  second,  by 
a  point  moving  at  a  uniform  rate.  All  these  are  good  Kantian 
assumptions.  It  seems  to  follow  rigorously  that  both  the  line 
and  the  second  are  exhausted  as  our  descending  series  indicates, 
and  that  both  come  to  an  end  only  when  the  series  is  terminated. 
The  motion  can  be  completed ;  the  second  can  be  completed  ;  the 
series  can  be  completed.  In  fact,  all  three  are  completed  simul- 


178  The  External  World 

taneously.  In  the  case,  then,  of  a  point  moving  uniformly  over 
a  finite  line,  we  have  evidence  of  the  fact  that  an  infinite  descend- 
ing series,  such  as  jj-,  •£,  -|,  -^g-  .  .  .  0,  can  be,  and  is,  completed. 

Now  let  us  suppose  a  circular  disk  set  revolving  around  its 
centre,  in  the  plane  of  this  paper,  in  such  a  manner  that,  at  the 
first  revolution,  a  point  P  on  its  circumference  is  carried  around 
to  the  place  at  which  it  was  before  in  half  a  second,  at  the  second 
revolution,  in  a  quarter  of  a  second,  at  the  third,  in  an  eighth  of 
a  second,  etc.  It  is  clear  that  at  the  end  of  one  second  from  the 
beginning  of  the  motion  the  disk  will  be  revolving  with  infinite 
rapidity,  or,  in  other  words,  the  time  of  P's  revolution  will  be 
reduced  from  half  a  second  to  zero.  We  have  here  a  descending 
series  of  exactly  the  same  kind  as  the  one  we  had  above  ;  the 
times  taken  up  by  the  successive  revolutions  are  |,  |,  ^,  -^ 
.  .  .0. 

Thus,  when  the  disk  is  revolving  with  infinite  rapidity,  there  is 
no  time  at  all  between  P's  leaving  the  place  at  which  it  was  and 
coming  back  to  it  again ;  which  means,  if  it  means  anything,  that 
P  is  always  at  the  same  place.  But,  since  similar  reasoning  will 
apply  to  any  other  position  through  which  P  is  supposed  to  pass 
in  each  of  its  revolutions  (for  the  interval  between  its  leaving  that 
position  and  returning  to  it  again  is  reduced  to  zero  by  the  com- 
pletion of  the  series),  we  can  prove  just  as  cogently  that  P  is  in 
the  whole  series  of  positions  all  the  time.  We  can  prove,  in  other 
words,  that  when  the  disk  revolves  with  infinite  rapidity,  P  is 
always  all  around  the  disk  at  once. 

I  suggest  this  argument  to  those  who  incline  to  the  at  present 
rather  unfashionable  scholastic  notion  that  the  whole  soul  is  simul- 
taneously in  all  parts  of  the  body  —  iota  in  toto  et  tota  in  utraque 
parte.  It  may  be  used  as  a  new  weapon  of  defence,  and  has  the 
advantage  of  being  based  upon  principles  admitted  by  their 
antagonists.  If  there  be  any  truth  in  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the 
infinite  divisibility  of  space  and  time,  why  should  not  the  soul  be 
thus  ubiquitous  ?  It  has  only  to  move  fast  enough  and  it  may 
succeed  in  being  everywhere  at  once.  The  trick  is  simple  —  let 
it  reduce  to  zero  the  time  between  its  setting  out  from  a  given 
spot  and  its  getting  around  to  it  again.  It  will,  then,  never  be 
away  from  that  spot,  and  it  will  also  always  be  at  every  other  spot 
in  the  line  of  its  vibration. 

To  those  who  find  repugnant  the  thought  of  this  midge's  dance 


Kantian  Difficulties  179 

of  the  soul  through  all  parts  of  the  body,  I  suggest  that  there  is 
nothing  in  this  doctrine  to  prevent  one  from  believing  that  through 
it  all  the  soul  retains  the  quiet  seat  in  the  pineal  gland  assigned  it 
by  Descartes.  There  it  remains,  like  a  spider  at  the  centre  of  its 
web ;  and  one  can  rest  one's  mind  by  thus  conceiving  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  those  heroic  moods  in  which  the  philosopher  loves 
to  emphasize  the  magic  powers  which  distinguish  mind  from  matter, 
independence  of  space  and  what  not,  one  can  reflect  upon  the  storm 
and  stress  of  its  inconceivable  motion,  —  a  motion  which  appears  to 
resemble  rest,  and  yet  is  its  extremest  opposite ;  a  motion  which 
consists  in  being  at  rest  in  every  place  and  in  no  place  simulta- 
neously. Then  one  can  proudly  maintain  that,  though  the  soul  be 
in  the  pineal  gland,  it  is  not  imprisoned  there,  like  an  impotent 
lump  of  matter,  hemmed  in  by  the  walls  of  its  cell,  and  unable  to 
break  through  them.  It  is  there,  as  it  is  everywhere,  by  its  own 
tireless  energy  —  there  and  not  there,  there  and  everywhere,  a 
standing  miracle,  a  living  contradiction. 

The  topic  is  one  upon  which  an  enthusiast  might  dilate  ;  but 
even  enthusiasm  should  not  be  allowed  to  run  into  injustice, 
and  the  mention  of  matter  reminds  me  that,  for  the  Kantian, 
matter,  too,  may  have  its  magical  properties.  We  began  with  a 
revolving  disk,  and  found  that  a  point  upon  its  circumference  may 
be,  under  certain  conditions,  all  around  the  disk  at  once.  But  if 
this  be  so,  it  must  be  possible  for  a  material  particle  in  the  tire  of 
a  revolving  wheel  to  be  all  around  the  wheel  at  once,  when  the 
wheel  is  revolving  with  infinite  rapidity,  and,  thus,  to  occupy  the 
same  space  with  all  the  other  particles  in  its  path.  Is  this  a  new 
insight  into  the  constitution  of  matter?  Shall  we  say  that  every 
particle  of  matter  excludes  from  the  space  it  occupies  every  other 
particle  when,  and  only  when,  its  motion  is  not  too  rapid?  Or 
shall  we  say  that,  although  it  is  conceivable  that  an  infinite  series 
may  be  completed  by  a  point  moving  along  a  line,  yet  it  is  not 
conceivable  that  an  infinite  series  can  be  completed  by  the  revo- 
lutions of  a  disk?  Is  it  an  "intuition"  that  there  is  this  difference 
between  moving  points  and  revolving  disks  ? 

But,  it  is  objected,  all  this  is  sheer  nonsense;  no  point  can 
possibly  be  in  more  than  one  position  at  one  time,  nor  is  it  possi- 
ble that  a  point  should  move  so  rapidly  as  always  to  remain  in 
the  same  spot.  I  answer :  Of  course  it  is  sheer  nonsense ;  but  I 
insist  that  the  whole  nonsensical  edifice  rests  upon  the  one  nonsensical 


180  The  External  World 

assumption  that  an  endless  series  can  be  completed  by  a  progress 
which  results  in  the  attainment  of  a  final  term.  This  is  the  as- 
sumption to  which  his  peculiar  views  of  the  infinite  divisibility  of 
space  and  time  force  the  Kantian.  Grant  this  assumption  and  the 
rest  follows  of  itself.  The  reasoning  contains  no  other  error.  Its 
steps,  briefly  stated,  are  as  follows :  — 

1.  If  finite  spaces  and  times  are  infinitely  divisible,  a  point 
moving  uniformly  over  a  finite  line,  must  be  able  to  pass  through 
an  endless  series  of  positions  and  arrive  at  the  very  end. 

2.  The  total  space  and  time  of  the  motion  may  be  so  divided 
as  to  be  truly  represented  by  the  descending  series,  £,  ^,  -|,  -Jg 
.  .  .0. 

3.  If  it  is  possible  for  one  such  series  to  be  completed,  there 
is  absolutely  no  reason  for  affirming  that  another  series  of  exactly 
the  same  kind  may  not  be. 

4.  Hence,  if  it  is  conceivable  that  a  disk  may  complete  one 
revolution  upon  its  centre  in  half  a  second,  the  next  in  a  quarter 
of  a  second,  etc.,  there  is  no  reason  for  affirming  that  it  is  theo- 
retically impossible  for  it  to  attain  such  a  rate  of  speed  that  the 
time  of  its  revolution  will  be  reduced  to  zero. 

5.  When  it  is  thus  reduced  to  zero,  it  is  clear  that  there  is  no 
time  whatever  during  which  a  point  upon  the  circumference  of 
the  disk  is  away  from  the  position  in  which  it  was  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  motion,  etc. 

I  beg  the  reader  to  remark  that  there  is  absolutely  no  ground 
for  discriminating  against  the  disk  in  the  mere  fact  that  it  is 
impossible  to  define  intelligibly  the  last  term  in  the  series  of  its 
revolutions.  It  is  important  to  grasp  this  clearly,  for  the  super- 
ficial thinker  is  apt  to  delude  himself  with  the  reflection :  We  can, 
at  least,  know  where  the  point  that  has  exhausted  the  line  is  at 
the  close  of  the  second ;  but  no  man  can  make  clear  what  the 
point  on  the  disk  is  doing  at  the  close  of  the  second. 

It  is,  however,  easy  to  show  that  the  final  term  is  not  a  whit 
more  difficult  of  definition  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other,  and 
that  our  partiality  for  the  line  is  due  to  a  mere  blunder.  In  the 
one  case  we  ask  where  the  point  is,  a  question  which  is  answered, 
not  by  an  appeal  to  our  infinite  series,  but  by  a  recourse  to  the 
tape  measure ;  a  question  which  may  be  answered  perfectly  well 
by  the  opponent  of  the  Kantian,  who  repudiates  the  infinite  divisi- 
bility of  finite  lines.  In  the  other  case  we  ask  what  the  nature 


Kantian  Difficulties  181 

of  the  final  term  z's,  a  question  which  cannot  but  be  highly  embar- 
rassing to  the  Kantian,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  cannot  admit 
that  there  is  a  final  term,  and  yet  cannot  get  on  without  one.  Let 
us  in  each  case  ask  the  same  question.  This  is  simple  justice,  for  it 
is  my  whole  contention  that  the  behavior  of  the  point  on  the  disk 
is  in  no  respect  more  reprehensible  than  that  of  the  point  on  the  line. 

We  will,  then,  inquire  into  the  nature  of  the  final  term  in  each 
series ;  what  is  happening  in  the  last  fraction  of  the  second  in  the 
one  case  and  in  the  other  ?  "  My  dear  man,"  insists  the  Kantian, 
"there  is  no  final  term,  and  there  is  no  last  fraction  of  the  second; 
space  and  time  are  continuous."  To  this  I  must  answer:  Has  not 
the  point  passed  over  the  whole  line?  Did  it  do  it  all  at  once,  or 
bit  by  bit?  No  two  bits,  small  or  great,  can  be  disposed  of  at  once. 
And  is  not  the  second  past  ?  Did  it  pass  as  a  unit,  or  bit  by  bit  ? 
Can  two  points  in  time  be  simultaneous  ?  There  was  a  beginning 
of  the  motion  and  an  end ;  there  was  a  beginning  and  an  end  of 
the  second.  Something  must  have  come  last.  We  will  talk  about 
that  something. 

Now,  what  is  the  point  on  the  disk  doing  at  the  very  close  of 
the  second  ?  It  cannot  be  describing  a  circle,  in  the  usual  sense  of 
the  words,  for  we  are  considering  the  last  term  in  the  series,  the 
last  fraction  of  the  second.  The  last  fraction  cannot  be  composed 
of  parts,  or  it  would  not  be  the  last ;  there  would  be  one  half  as 
big  after  it.  To  describe  a  circle  a  point  must  be  in  successive 
positions  in  successive  instants,  and  here  we  have  not  successive 
instants.  On  the  other  hand,  the  point  cannot  be  at  rest,  as  the 
words  are  commonly  understood.  Is  it  not  the  law  of  the  series 
that,  with  each  succeeding  term,  the  point  will  double  the  rapidity 
of  its  motion  ?  Is  there  anything  in  the  nature  of  space  and  time 
to  warrant  us  in  assuming  that,  at  a  given  instant,  doubling  the 
rapidity  of  a  point's  motion  will  bring  the  point  to  rest  ? 

But  what  is  the  other  point  doing  in  the  same  final  fraction  of 
the  second?  Is  it  moving?  There  is  no  time  to  move  in,  for  this 
fraction  has  no  parts.  Is  the  point  exhausting  the  final  bit  of  line  ? 
Surely  not  that ;  it  cannot  be  concerned  with  a  bit  of  line,  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  words,  for  every  bit  of  line  must,  by  hypothesis, 
be  composed  of  parts,  and  so  long  as  we  have  before  us  a  some- 
thing with  parts  we  are  not  occupying  ourselves  with  a  final  term ; 
there  is  still  room  for  a  term  half  as  big.  Is  our  point,  then, 
"exhausting"  a  mere  point?  We  are  told  that  a  point  cannot 


182  The  External  World 

in  any  way  contribute  to  the  length  of  a  line ;  and,  if  this  be  so, 
our  final  term  forms  no  part  of  the  point's  path  —  it  does  not  add 
what  was  lacking.  Besides,  our  final  term  must  be  half  the  size 
of  the  term  preceding,  and  what  sort  of  a  bit  of  line  is  it  that  is 
made  up  of  two  mathematical  points  ? 

We  cannot,  therefore,  admit  the  right  of  the  Kantian  to  repudi- 
ate the  timeless  motion  of  that  depressing  disk  on  the  mere  ground 
that  it  is  in  its  nature  an  absurdity.  The  Kantian  accepts,  as  we 
have  seen,  many  absurdities.  The  disk  is  in  the  last  fraction  of  the 
second  as  sensibly  occupied  as  is  the  point  that  moves  along  a  line. 
In  each  case  we  are  contemplating  what  is  absurd  and  inconceiv- 
able, and  there  is  not  the  toss  of  a  copper  between  them. 

The  conclusions  of  these  reasonings  will  doubtless  seem  to 
many  persons  highly  unpalatable.  There  is,  however,  but  one 
way  to  avoid  them,  and  that  is  to  repudiate  the  foundations  upon 
which  they  rest.  Perhaps  I  should  amend  this  statement  by  saying 
there  is  only  one  logical  way  to  avoid  them.  Practically,  of  course, 
we  can  avoid  them  by  turning  our  minds  from  the  whole  subject, 
and  this  is  what  is  commonly  done.  The  unpleasant  conse- 
quences of  philosophic  reasonings  may  be  put  to  rout  by  an  enemy 
who  has  not  borrowed  his  arms  from  Aristotle  or  from  his  succes- 
sors. "I  dine,"  writes  Hume,1  "I  play  a  game  of  backgammon, 
I  converse,  and  am  merry  with  my  friends ;  and  when,  after  three 
or  four  hours'  amusement,  I  would  return  to  these  speculations, 
they  appear  so  cold,  and  strained,  and  ridiculous,  that  I  cannot 
find  it  in  my  heart  to  enter  into  them  any  further."  In  such  a 
mood  logical  difficulties  are  not  taken  seriously,  and  the  mind 
drifts  upon  the  stream  of  its  habitual  associations. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  such  moods  are  by  no  means  ex- 
clusively the  result  of  relaxation  and  conviviality.  An  attachment 
to  the  doctrines  of  this  or  of  that  school  of  thought,  doctrines  to 
which  we  have  grown  accustomed,  and  which  seem  to  place  at 
least  some  sort  of  ground  under  our  feet;  the  agreeable  sense 
that  we  belong  to  a  party,  and  are  not  groping  our  way  alone  in 
the  maze  of  speculations  which  confronts  the  philosopher ;  these 
things,  and  such  as  these,  may  disincline  us  to  take  seriously  even 
the  most  serious  of  difficulties.  We  choose  to  jolt  our  way  along 
upon  the  old  road,  even  over  an  occasional  self-contradiction.  It 
seems  better  than  to  seek  a  smoother  track,  which  is  little  fre- 
1  "Treatise  of  Human  Nature,"  Book  I,  Part  IV,  §  7. 


Kantian  Difficulties  183 

quented,  and  which  may,  for  all  we  know,  lead  anywhere  or  no- 
where. Accordingly,  we  take  up  an  exposition  of  the  inconsistencies 
which  arise  out  of  the  Kantian  doctrine,  read  it  through,  indulgently 
compliment  the  author  upon  his  "  acuteness,"  and,  feeling  unable 
to  point  out  any  actual  flaw  in  his  argument,  we  take  our  stand 
upon  what  may  be  called  the  platform  of  the  liberal-conservative 
in  philosophy,  saying :  "  There  are  undoubtedly  difficulties  con- 
nected with  the  doctrine  of  the  infinite  divisibility  of  finite  spaces, 
but  the  way  to  avoid  these  difficulties  is  not  to  repudiate  what  is 
undoubted  truth,  and  to  take  refuge  in  a  shallow  empiricism,"  etc. 
Although  the  occasioning  cause  may  be  different,  our  attitude  of 
mind  is  distinctly  Humian. 

Before  closing  this  discussion  of  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  space, 
I  must  comment  briefly  upon  one  attempt  to  avoid  the  enormities 
we  have  been  passing  in  review,  which  does  not  repudiate  the 
doctrine  of  the  infinite  divisibility  of  finite  spaces,  and  which  yet 
does  not  simply  avert  its  eyes  from  the  painful  consequences  of  the 
doctrine.  This  attempt  consists  in  maintaining  that  we  are  not 
bound  to  hold  that  every  finite  space  consists  of  an  infinite  number 
of  finite  spaces,  for  space  is  infinitely  divisible  not  infinitely  divided. 

This  quibble  —  for  although  it  has  a  venerable  history,  it  is 
nothing  more  —  need  not  detain  us  very  long.  We  have  only  to 
ask  how  it  helps  us  in  the  case  of  the  moving  point.  The  line 
over  which  the  point  has  moved  is  infinitely  divisible.  What  does 
this  mean?  We  call  a  line  divisible,  because  we  believe  that  it 
can  be  divided ;  and  we  believe  that  it  can  be  divided  (theoreti- 
cally of  course),  because  it  is  composed  of  parts.  If  we  did  not 
believe  it  to  be  composed  of  parts,  we  should  not  regard  it  as 
divisible.  By  saying  that  the  line  is  infinitely  divisible,  we  mean 
simply  that  it  is  composed,  not  of  a  limited,  but  of  an  unlimited 
number  of  parts ;  and  by  saying  that  the  motion  of  a  point  over 
it  is  continuous,  we  mean  that  the  point  must  take  successively 
an  infinite  series  of  positions.  Now  our  point  has  completed  its 
progress ;  it  is  at  the  end  of  the  line.  Has  it,  or  has  it  not, 
passed  over  every  part  of  the  line  ?  Has  it,  or  has  it  not,  been 
successively  in  an  endless  series  of  positions?  It  is  trivial  to 
raise  the  question  whether  the  parts  of  the  line,  the  positions 
along  it,  have  been  counted  or  not.  If  the  line  is  infinitely  divis- 
ible, and  if  the  point  moves  along  it,  it  evidently  comes  to  the  end 
of  an  endless  series  at  every  step  of  its  progress. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  BERKELEIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  SPACE 

IT  is  clear  from  what  was  said  in  my  last  paper  that  the  Kan- 
tian doctrine  is  a  house  divided  against  itself,  and  that,  unless  we 
elect  to  embrace  the  motto  :  credo  quia  absurdum  est  —  a  motto  not 
now  in  fashion  in  most  departments  of  human  knowledge  —  we  are 
under  obligations  either  to  modify  it  or  to  repudiate  it  altogether. 

What  shall  we  do?  Shall  we  maintain  that  space  is  not  infi- 
nitely divisible  ?  If  we  have  the  temerity  to  do  this,  we  shall  find 
drawn  up  against  us,  not  merely  the  philosophers,  but  with  them 
a  formidable  array  of  those  who,  like  Clifford,  care  not  a  doit  for 
philosophers,  but  hold  very  definite  notions  regarding  points,  lines, 
surfaces,  and  solids,  and  express  these  opinions  with  much  em- 
phasis. The  mathematician  usually  takes  little  interest  in  such 
distinctions  as  that  between  "  intuition  "  and  "  conception  "  ;  but 
he  insists  strenuously  that  it  is  absurd  to  maintain  that  a  surface 
may  be  so  narrow  that,  when  split  longitudinally,  it  is  divided 
into  two  lines ;  or  a  line  so  short  that,  when  bisected,  it  yields 
only  a  brace  of  points.  Mathematics,  he  affirms,  can  recognize  no 
such  lines  or  surfaces. 

And  in  this  the  mathematician  is  entirely  in  the  right.  The 
space  with  which  he  is  concerned  is  infinitely  divisible  ;  his  solids 
do  not  split  up  into  surfaces,  his  surfaces  into  lines,  and  his  lines 
into  points.  But,  then,  he  is  not  dealing  with  a  space  immediately 
given  in  intuition  ;  he  is  dealing  with  real  space.  He  has  passed 
from  sign  to  thing  signified,  without  remarking  the  distinction  be- 
tween them,  and  though  this  distinction  may  not  greatly  concern 
him  when  he  remains  on  his  own  ground,  it  is  one  of  the  utmost 
moment  to  the  metaphysician.  Indeed,  it  is  just  the  failure  to 
recognize  it  that  has  introduced  into  the  Kantian  doctrine  the  in- 
consistencies previously  discussed.  That  doctrine  is  so  near  to  the 
truth  that  it  needs  but  a  little  modification  to  make  it  quite  satis- 
factory. This  I  must  try  to  make  clear. 

184 


The  Berkeleian  Doctrine  of  Space  185 

We  have  seen  that  Kant  held  that  every  object  of  intuition 
must  consist  of  part  out  of  part,  whether  we  can  prove  it  to  be  so 
constituted  or  not.  "All  intuitions,"  he  maintains  elsewhere  in 
the  "Critique,"1  "are  extensive  quantities."  "By  an  extensive 
quantity,"  he  explains,  "  I  mean  one  in  which  the  representation 
of  the  parts  makes  possible  the  representation  of  the  whole  (and 
hence,  necessarily  antecedes  this).  I  cannot  represent  to  myself 
any  line,  however  small,  without  drawing  it  in  thought,  i.e.  from 
a  point  generating  all  its  parts  successively,  and  thus  alone  pro- 
ducing the  intuition.  So  it  is  also  in  the  case  of  every,  even 
the  smallest,  portion  of  time.  In  it  I  represent  to  myself  only  the 
successive  progress  from  moment  to  moment,  and  this,  by  the 
addition  of  all  the  bits  of  time  (JZeittheile),  finally  begets  a  deter- 
minate quantity  of  time.  Since  the  pure  intuition  in  all  phenom- 
ena is  either  of  space  or  of  time,  every  phenomenon,  as  intuition, 
is  an  extensive  quantity,  for  it  can  only  be  cognized  in  apprehen- 
sion through  the  addition  of  part  to  part.  Hence  all  phenomena 
are  intuited  as  aggregates,  as  consisting  of  a  multiplicity  of  previ- 
ously given  parts.  This  is  not  the  case  with  quantities  of  every 
description,  but  only  with  those  that  are  represented  and  appre- 
hended by  us  as  in  their  nature  extensive  quantities." 

The  reader  of  the  preceding  chapter  will  find  in  this  passage  a 
good  deal  to  object  to.  To  represent  to  myself  any  line,  however 
small,  I  must  produce  it  bit  by  bit;  I  must  successively  add  all  its 
parts.  How  many  of  these  parts  are  there  ?  An  endless  number. 
And  are  these  bits  of  line  ready  to  hand,  or  must  they  be  pro- 
duced "  from  a  point "  ?  And  what  is  meant  by  a  "  successive  prog- 
ress from  moment  to  moment "  ?  Are  moments  indivisible,  or  are 
they  bits  of  time  ?  Evidently  the  latter.  They,  in  turn,  then, 
are  a  problem,  and  must  be  obtained  as  the  result  of  an  endless 
addition  of  parts.  The  successive  addition  of  portions  of  space  and 
of  time  seems  simple  only  when  one  forgets  for  the  moment  that 
one  is  a  Kantian. 

That  is  what  Kant  has  done  here ;  he  makes  space  and  time  out 
of  spaces  and  times,  but  he  leaves  us  wholly  in  the  dark  as  to  how 
those  bits  of  space  and  time  that  we  are  to  piece  together  come  into 
being.  There  is  a  leap  from  a  point  —  and  they  somehow  appear ;  the 
rest  is  simple.  But  we  must  not  ask  how  we  "  drew  "  the  first  bit 
of  line,  or  how  we  "  begat "  a  moment.  Moreover,  if  all  phenomena 

1  "Critique  of  Pure  Eeason,"  Transcendental  Logic,  Axioms  of  Intuition. 


186  The  External  World 

are  "  cognized  in  apprehension  through  the  addition  of  part  to 
part,"  or  "  intuited  as  aggregates,"  how  about  the  minimum  sensi- 
bile,  which  is  inferred  to  have  parts,  although  we  cannot  perceive 
it  to  be  composed  of  such  ?  Do  we  "  intuit "  this  as  an  aggregate, 
even  while  it  seems  to  us  to  be  simple  ? 

But  I  must  not  dwell  upon  these  inconsistencies,  for  they  have 
been  sufficiently  discussed  already.  In  the  division  of  the  "  Critique  " 
from  which  I  have  just  been  quoting,  Kant  again  makes  it  evident 
that  he  is  led  to  take  the  unfortunate  position  that  he  does  take,  by 
the  supposed  necessity  of  avoiding  a  clash  with  mathematical  doc- 
trine. "  Empirical  intuition,"  he  writes,  "  is  only  made  possible 
by  pure  intuition  —  that  of  space  and  time.  Hence  what  geometry 
says  of  the  latter  will  indisputably  apply  to  the  former.  Such 
evasions  as  the  statement  that  objects  of  sense  do  not  conform  to  the 
rules  of  construction  in  space  (to  the  principle  of  the  infinite  divisi- 
bility of  lines  and  angles,  for  example)  must  fall  to  the  ground. 
For  such  evasions  deny  to  space,  and  with  space  to  mathematics  as 
a  whole,  objective  validity ;  and  one  no  longer  knows  why  and  to 
what  extent  the  mathematics  can  be  applied  to  phenomena." 

Here  we  have  the  very  nerve  of  the  dispute.  Are  we  to  repudi- 
ate mathematical  reasonings,  or,  what  seems  as  bad,  to  deny  their 
applicability  to  the  things  of  which  the  senses  give  us  information  ? 
Surely  not.  But  are  we,  then,  to  accept  the  infinite  divisibility  of 
what  is  given  in  intuition,  and  must  we,  to  avoid  giving  offence  to 
the  mathematician,  shut  our  eyes  and  bolt  the  inevitable  conse- 
quences of  such  an  admission  ?  It  is  pathetic  to  hear  those  who 
feel  within  them  the  pangs  of  the  antinomial  colic  murmur  with 
resignation  :  "  There  are,  indeed,  difficulties,"  etc. 

It  is  a  relief  to  find  that  we  are  not,  in  fact,  shut  up  to  these  al- 
ternatives. Kant  himself  has  recognized  a  distinction  which,  when 
its  significance  is  clearly  seen,  enables  us  to  avoid  disaster  in  either 
direction.  The  passage  in  the  "  Critique,"  which  I  have  in  mind 
in  saying  this,  is  so  interesting  that  I  shall  quote  it  at  length : J  — 

"  We  are  accustomed  to  distinguish  in  phenomena  what  be- 
longs essentially  to  the  intuition  of  them,  and  is  valid  for  every 
human  sense-faculty,  from  what  belongs  to  them  only  accidentally, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  not  valid  in  relation  to  the  faculty  of  sense  taken 
generally,  but  only  in  relation  to  a  particular  disposition  or  organi- 
zation of  this  or  that  sense.  Knowledge  of  the  first  sort  gives  us, 
1 "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  General  Remarks  on  Transcendental  Esthetic. 


The  Berkeleian  Doctrine  of  Space  187 

we  say,  the  object  as  it  is  in  itself ;  knowledge  of  the  second  gives 
us  only  the  object  as  it  appears.  But  this  distinction  is  merely 
empirical.  If  we  adhere  to  this  position  (as  is  commonly  done), 
and  do  not  regard  the  former  empirical  intuition  (as  one  should) 
as,  in  its  turn,  mere  phenomenon,  in  which  nothing  that  belongs 
to  the  thing-in-itself  is  to  be  found,  we  lose  our  transcendental 
distinction,  and  we  believe  that  we  are  cognizing  things  in  them- 
selves ;  whereas,  on  the  contrary,  everywhere  in  the  world  of  sense, 
even  in  our  profoundest  investigations  into  the  objects  which  belong 
to  that  world,  we  are  dealing  with  nothing  but  phenomena. 

"  Thus  we  call  the  rainbow  a  mere  appearance  or  phenomenon 
in  a  sunny  shower,  and  we  call  the  rain  the  thing-in-itself.  This  is 
right  enough,  if  we  take  those  words  in  a  mere  physical  sense,  and 
mean  by  the  thing-in-itself  that  which,  in  universal  experience,  and 
in  all  its  various  relations  to  the  senses,  is  constituted  in  intuition  in 
just  this  way  and  in  no  other.  But  if  we  take  this  empirical  expe- 
rience generally,  and,  without  inquiring  into  its  harmony  with  the 
faculty  of  sense  of  every  human  being,  ask  whether  this  represents 
an  object  in  itself  (not  the  raindrops,  for  they,  as  phenomena,  are 
evidently  empirical  objects)  —  if  we  do  this,  we  find  that  the  ques- 
tion of  the  relation  of  the  representative  to  its  object  is  a  transcen- 
dental one,  and  that  not  only  are  the  drops  mere  phenomena,  but 
even  their  globular  form,  nay,  the  very  space  through  which  they 
fall,  all  are  nothing  in  themselves,  but  are  mere  modifications  or 
fundamental  dispositions  of  our  sensuous  intuition.  The  transcen- 
dental object  remains  unknown  to  us." 

This  "  transcendental  object "  is,  of  course,  the  "  external 
reality "  which  has  so  often  been  assumed  to  exist  beyond  con- 
sciousness, and  with  which  I  am  not  concerned  in  these  chapters. 
In  this  passage  of  the  "Critique,"  as  in  many  others,  Kant  comes  near 
to  repudiating  it  altogether.  He  sees  that  the  distinction  we  all 
draw  between  appearance  and  reality  does  not  necessitate  any 
reference  to  such  a  thing  as  this,  but  is  a  distinction  within  our 
experience,  and  has  to  do  only  with  phenomena,  in  the  broad  sense 
of  that  word.  One  experience  (the  rainbow)  is  taken  as  the  sign 
of  another  (the  falling  drops)  ;  the  sign  is  recognized  as  appear- 
ance, while  the  thing  signified  takes  on  the  dignity  of  the  reality. 
This  is  quite  in  harmony  with  the  doctrine  coming  to  be  accepted, 
I  think,  by  an  increasing  number  of  philosophers,  namely,  that 
when  we  are  contrasting  in  our  experience  appearance  and  reality, 


188  The  External  World 

the  reality  always  means  to  us  that  upon  which  we  lay  the  duty  of 
ordering  and  explaining  our  experiences  as  a  whole. 

Unhappily,  Kant  did  not  see  the  full  significance  of  this  dis- 
tinction. He  might,  after  showing  in  what  sense  the  rainbow  is 
not  the  reality,  but  only  the  sign  of  it,  have  gone  on  to  show  that 
each  raindrop,  as  visual-appearance,  is  sign  of  a  reality  known  to 
us  in  terms  of  touch  and  motion.  Having  arrived  at  this  point, 
he  might  have  indicated  that  this  reality,  in  its  turn,  is  relatively 
and  not  absolutely  real ;  i.e.  that  what  is  actually  given  in  sense 
or  imagination  (the  intuition)  may  in  its  turn  become  sign  or 
appearance  of  something  else,  which  thus  becomes,  relatively  to  it, 
the  reality.  As  it  is,  he  assumes  that  there  is  given  in  intuition  a 
last  "  appearance,"  which  is  the  reality,  not  in  a  relative,  but  in  an 
absolute  and  final  sense,  and  to  which  the  "  rules  of  construction  in 
space  "  directly  apply  in  all  their  rigor.  He  fails  to  see  that  here, 
as  before,  he  is  dealing  with  a  symbol,  and  out  of  his  confusion  of 
symbol  and  thing  symbolized  spring  the  difficulties  exhibited  above. 

The  doctrine  which  I  have  called  the  Berkeleian  avoids  these 
difficulties,  without,  I  think,  giving  up  anything  that  the  Kantian 
need  care  to  retain.  It  merely  distinguishes  more  carefully 
between  symbol  and  thing  symbolized,  and  refuses  to  be  led 
into  needless  perplexities  by  the  assumption  of  "  necessary  forms  " 
of  intuition  and  supposed  inferences  from  them.  Its  argument 
may  be  set  forth  briefly  as  follows  :  — 

1.  In  a  given  experience  of  which  I  am  intuitively  conscious 
—  say,  an  expanse  of  color-sensation  —  I  can  distinguish  between 

"  matter  "  and  "  form,"  between  the  stuff  of  my  experience  and  its 
arrangement. 

2.  I  perceive  the  expanse  of  color  to  be  composite,  and  to  be 
divisible  into  parts,  but  I  do  not  perceive  it  to  be  composed  of  an 
infinite  number  of  parts,    i.e.   to  be  infinitely  divisible ;  so  much 
Kant  has  himself  admitted. 

3.  It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind,  however,  that  no  such  single 
experience  constitutes  what  we  mean  by  a  "  real  thing,"  nor  is  its 
"form"  what  we  mean  by  "real  space."     We  have  here  only  the 
raw  materials  out  of  which  real  things  and  real  space  are  built  up. 
Our  experiences  fall  together  into  an  orderly  system,  and  single 
experiences  serve  as  signs  of  other  experiences  or  of  whole  groups 
of  such.     Thus  the  little  patch  of  color-sensation  that  represents  a 
tree  seen  at  a  distance,  and  the  larger  patch  that  represents  a  tree 


The  Berkeleian  Doctrine  of  Space  189 

seen  near  at  hand,  are  recognized  as  belonging  to  the  same  group, 
and  are  regarded  as  different  experiences  of  the  same  thing,  i.e.  the 
one  can  stand  for  the  other,  and  each  serves  as  a  sign  of  the 
"  tactual "  tree  in  which  the  mind  rests  as  the  real  thing  of  which 
each  is  an  appearance. 

4.  But  a  little  reflection  makes  it  apparent  that  it  is  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  this  real  thing,  of  which  the  whole  series  of  visual 
appearances  are  signs,  is  a  single  intuitive  experience  of  any  sort. 
The  tactual  thing,  as  it  exists  in  the  sense  or  the  imagination,  is 
the  temporary  resting-place  of  our  thought,  not  its  permanent  goal. 
Science  conceives  the  tree  to  be  made  up  of  atoms  and  molecules, 
imperceptible  to  the  sense,  and  yet  really  existing  and  furnishing 
an  explanation  of  what  is  given  in  the  sense.     Of  this  "  reality  " 
the  tree  over  which  I   pass  my  hand  becomes  an  "appearance." 
And  if  we  are  justified  in  thus  passing  from  what  is  given  in  the 
senses,  to  what  science  compels  us    to  accept  as   furnishing  its 
explanation,  a  path  is  opened  up  to  us  to  which  we  cannot  arbi- 
trarily set  a  limit.     The  real  thing,  in  any  but  a  relative  sense,  be- 
comes to  us  a  possibility  of  substitutions  according  to  a  definite  prin- 
ciple ;  it  is  not  a  single  intuitive  experience  of  any  sort  whatever. 

5.  If  we  will  hold  this  clearly  in  mind,  we  may  avoid  anti- 
nomial  pitfalls  without  either  tilting  against  mathematics,  or  shock- 
ing the  common  sense  of  mankind  by  denying  that  space,  and  lines 
and  angles  in  space,  are  infinitely  divisible.     Berkeley  pointed  out 
long  ago  that  we  cannot  continue  to  subdivide  a  given  finite  line 
(the  line,  that  is,  as  given  in  a  single  intuition)  indefinitely.      We 
soon  come  to  what  appears  to  the  sense  to  be  a  mere  point,  and  to 
have  no  part  out  of  part.     He  rightly  indicated  that  when  we  talk 
of  subdividing  that  which  seems  to  the  eye  a  mere  point  we  are  in 
imagination  substituting  for  that  a  line,  which  is,  of  course,  composed 
of  parts,  and  we  are  continuing  our  subdivision  upon  this  substitute. 

When  we  realize  that  this  system  of  substitutions  is  typical  of 
our  whole  experience  of  the  real  world,  which  reveals  itself  in  con- 
sciousness as  a  system  of  interrelated  experiences,  we  can  under- 
stand why  the  infinite  divisibility  of  extended  things  should  be  so 
earnestly  insisted  upon.  The  point  which  appears  to  result  from 
the  subdivision  of  a  line  can  be  approached  to  the  eye,  and  it  is 
seen  as  a  short  line.  When  a  further  subdivision  has  taken  place, 
and  no  change  of  position  will  reveal  it  as  a  line,  we  can  place  a 
microscope  over  it. 


190  The  External  World 

In  all  this  we  conceive  ourselves  to  be  dealing  with  the  same 
thing,  and  so  we  are,  in  a  very  important  sense  of  the  word  same. 
But  it  is  a  very  unfortunate  error  to  suppose  that  any  one  of  the 
experiences  which  represents  to  us  the  real  thing  is  the  same  with 
any  other  in  a  quite  different  sense  of  the  word  —  to  suppose, 
namely,  that  they  are  strictly  identical.  Unless  we  happen  to  be 
psychologists,  we  are  not  concerned  with  any  one  of  the  experi- 
ences in  itself  considered.  We  are  concerned  with  the  real  thing, 
of  which  any  single  experience  is  a  mere  symbol.  It  is  quite"  pos- 
sible for  the  psychologist  to  maintain  that  any  single  experience  is 
probably  ultimately  divisible  into  a  limited  number  of  sensational 
elements  not  themselves  further  divisible;  and  yet  to  maintain 
stoutly  that  the  real  thing  is  to  be  conceived  as  infinitely  divisible. 
He  has  only  to  distinguish  carefully  symbol  from  thing  symbolized. 

6.  Thus  we  see  that,  although  the  geometer  finds  his  raw 
materials  in  intuition,  he  uses  these  raw  materials  only  as  his  point 
of  departure.  If  lines  and  angles  were  not  given  in  intuition,  and 
if  we  could  not  subdivide  these  in  individual  experiences,  the  geo- 
metrical refinements  which  have  grown  out  of  such  experiences 
would  be  impossible.  But  these  refinements  have,  be  it  remem- 
bered, grown  out  of  the  experiences ;  they  are  not  identical  with  the 
experiences  themselves. 

For  example,  a  fine  line  upon  the  paper  before  my  eye  seems  to 
me  to  have  length,  but  no  breadth.  I  can  divide  it  in  such  a  way 
that  the  two  resulting  portions  seem  to  me  to  be  exactly  equal  to 
each  other.  I  can  form  an  angle  out  of  two  such  lines,  and  can 
draw  a  third  line  in  such  a  way  that  it  seems  to  bisect  the  angle 
exactly.  But  the  mathematician  informs  me  that  no  line  can  be 
drawn,  by  any  instrument,  which  has  not  breadth  as  well  as 
length ;  and  that  the  chances  are  infinitely  against  the  exact 
equality  of  the  parts  of  the  divided  line  and  of  the  divided  angle. 
"  The  line  may  seem  to  you  without  breadth,"  he  explains,  "  and 
the  line  and  the  angle  may  seem  exactly  bisected  ;  but  this  is  mere 
seeming.  If  your  senses  were  more  discriminating,  you  would 
discover  your  mistake." 

This  simply  means  that,  in  the  series  of  substitutions  we  have 
been  considering,  the  line  will  not  remain  a  line,  but  will  turn  into 
a  surface,  and  the  halves  will  no  longer  remain  halves,  but  will  be 
seen  to  be  unequal.  The  geometer  gets  his  first  crude  notion  of  a 
line  and  of  bisection  in  just  such  intuitive  experiences  as  I  have 


The  Berkeleian  Doctrine  of  Space  191 

mentioned.  But  he  does  not  rest  in  the  intuition  ;  he  turns  it  into 
a  conception.  The  geometrical  line  he  conceives  as  one  which, 
under  all  circumstances,  is  to  remain  a  line ;  the  geometrical  point 
must  not,  when  narrowly  inspected,  spread  out  into  a  spot;  the 
bisected  angle  must  remain  bisected.  That  lines  which  appear  to 
be  true  lines  are  seen  on  closer  inspection  to  be  narrow  surfaces, 
and  that  visible  points  turn  into  small  bits  of  territory,  is  matter 
of  constant  experience.  The  geometrical  line  and  point  must  not 
do  this  under  any  circumstances  whatever.  They  are  abstractions, 
not  concrete  things. 

7.  From  the  above  it  seems  to  be  clear  that  real  space  is  neither 
a  hopeless  mystery  nor  the  mother  of  unavoidable  self-contradic- 
tions. Real  space  is  the  "  form  "  of  the  real  thing,  and  just  as  the 
real  thing  (in  any  but  a  relative  sense  of  the  word)  is  not  given  in 
any  intuition,  so  real  space  (in  any  but  a  relative  sense)  is  not 
given  in  any  intuition. 

When,  in  any  given  instance,  I  pass  in  thought  from  appearance 
to  reality  —  for  example,  when  I  pass  from  the  visual  appearance 
to  the  tactual  thing  of  which  it  is  the  sign  —  I  may  regard  the 
"  form  "  of  the  latter  as  more  real  than  that  of  the  former.  It  is 
that  in  which  the  mind  rests  for  the  time  being.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  any  such  thing  may,  in  its  turn,  become  appearance  in  rela- 
tion to  a  reality  more  ultimate ;  and  we  recognize  that,  however 
far  we  may  carry  our  investigations,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe 
that  we  shall  meet  with  an  absolute  limit.  Every  reality  in  which 
we  may  rest  at  any  time  is,  thus,  a  relative  reality,  and  its  space  is 
relatively  real.  The  absolute  object  and  its  absolute  space  are  not 
an  object  (intuitive)  and  a  space  (the  "form"  of  an  intuition), 
but  rather  an  indefinite  series  of  substitutions  gathered  up  and 
hypostatized  into  an  individual.  It  is  to  this  absolute  object  and 
its  absolute  space  that  the  mathematical  conceptions  apply  in  all 
their  rigor.  They  apply  to  these  without  self-contradiction,  because 
we  are  here  not  dealing  with  an  individual  experience  at  all. 

And  it  should  be  noted  that,  just  as  we  do  not  think  of  the 
several  appearances  as  so  many  different  objects,  but  call  them 
manifold  appearances  of  the  one  object;  so  we  do  not  regard  the 
"form"  of  each  appearance,  the  space  it  occupies,  as  a  distinct 
and  separate  space. 

When  we  walk  toward  the  tree  which  we  see  at  a  distance,  we 
recognize  that  we  are  conscious  of  a  succession  of  appearances,  and 


192  The  External  World 

a  little  attention  to  them  reveals  the  fact  that  they  differ  from  each 
other  both  in  "  matter  "  and  in  "  form  "  ;  in  other  words,  the  patch 
of  color  of  which  we  are  conscious  undergoes  both  qualitative  and 
quantitative  changes.  Yet  we  maintain  that  we  have  been  look- 
ing all  along  at  the  one  tree,  and  we  regard  that  one  tree  as 
occupying  one  real  space,  which  does  not  grow  larger,  but  remains 
always  the  same.  This  means  that  both  "  matter  "  and  "  form  "  in 
the  successive  appearances  have  been  reduced  to  the  rank  of  mere 
signs  of  a  something  beyond  them. 

So  much  for  the  Berkeleian  doctrine.  As  it  makes  any  par- 
ticular finite  line  in  consciousness  to  consist  of  a  limited  number 
of  simple  parts,  it  is  not  open  to  the  objection  that  it  makes  motion 
along  such  a  line  a  wholly  inconceivable  thing.  It  does  not  force 
upon  a  moving  point  the  absurd  task  of  exhausting  an  endless 
series.  The  descending  series  discussed  in  the  last  paper  results 
after  a  limited  number  of  terms  in  the  simple,  and  there  the  series 
is  broken,  for  the  simple  does  not  consist  of  parts.  In  all  this  there 
is,  at  least,  no  contradiction.  In  an  earlier  work  I  have  discussed 
the  objections  commonly  brought  against  it,  and  at  the  risk  of  a 
little  repetition  I  shall  quote  what  I  have  there  said: 1  — 

"  It  may  be  argued,  first,  as  it  often  is  argued,  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  conceive  of  any  part  of  a  line  as  not  itself  extended  and 
having  parts.  It  may  be  admitted  that  the  small  parts  arrived 
at  do  not  seem  to  have  part  out  of  part,  that  these  sub-parts  are 
not  observed  in  them ;  but  still  it  is  said  that  one  who  thinks 
about  them  cannot  but  think  of  them  as  really  having  such  parts. 
I  ask  one  who  puts  forward  this  objection  to  look  into  his  own 
mind  and  see  whether  he  does  not  mean  by  "thinking  about 
them,"  bringing  them  in  imagination  nearer  to  the  eye,  or  by 
some  means  substituting  for  them  what  can  be  seen  to  have  part 
out  of  part.  That  one  can  do  this  no  one  would  think  of  denying, 
but  this  does  not  prove  the  original  parts  to  be  extended. 

"  It  may  be  objected,  again,  that  extension  can  never  be  built 
up  out  of  the  non-extended  —  that  if  one  element  of  a  given  kind 
has,  taken  alone,  no  extension  at  all,  two  or  more  such  elements 
together  cannot  have  any  extension  either.  I  answer  that  a 
straight  line  has  no  angularity  at  all,  and  yet  two  straight  lines 
may  obviously  make  an  angle ;  that  one  man  is  not  in  the  least 
a  crowd,  but  that  one  hundred  men  may  be ;  that  no  single  tree 
1  "  On  Sameness  and  Identity,"  pp.  150-152. 


The  Berkeleian  Doctrine  of  Space  193 

is  a  forest,  but  that  many  trees  together  do  make  a  forest ;  that 
a  uniform  expanse  of  color  is  in  no  sense  a  variegated  surface,  but 
that  several  such  together  do  make  a  variegated  surface.  It 
may  be  that  extension  is  simply  the  name  we  give  to  several 
simple  sense-elements  of  a  particular  kind  taken  together.  One 
cannot  say  offhand  that  it  is  not. 

"  Should  one  object,  finally,  that,  if  a  given  line  in  conscious- 
ness be  composed  of  a  limited  number  of  indivisible  elements  of 
sensation,  consciousness  ought  to  distinguish  these  single  elements 
and  testify  as  to  their  number ;  I  answer  that  what  is  in  conscious- 
ness is  not  necessarily  in  a  clear  analytical  consciousness,  nor  well 
distinguished  from  other  elements.  For  example,  I  am  at  present 
conscious  of  a  stream  of  sensations  which  I  connect  with  the  hand 
that  holds  my  pen.  The  single  elements  in  this  complex  I  cannot 
distinguish  from  each  other,  nor  can  I  give  their  number.  It  does 
not  follow  that  I  am  to  assume  the  number  to  be  infinite.  Much 
less  should  I  be  impelled  to  make  this  assumption,  if  it  necessitated 
my  accepting  as  true  what  I  see  to  be  flatly  self-contradictory,  as 
in  the  case  under  discussion.  It  was  because  of  this  vagueness 
and  lack  of  discrimination  in  the  testimony  of  consciousness  that  I 
said,  some  distance  back,  that  consciousness  seems  to  testify  that 
any  finite  line  in  it  is  composed  of  simple  parts.  If  the  testimony 
were  quite  clear,  the  matter  would  be  settled  at  once.  As  it  is  not 
quite  clear,  the  matter  has  to  be  settled  on  a  deductive  basis.  The 
most  reasonable  solution  appears  to  be  the  Berkeleian." 

Surely  the  Berkeleian  doctrine  is  preferable  to  the  Kantian,  and 
should  replace  it.  But  it  is  desirable  not  to  overlook  the  fact  that 
the  latter  doctrine  emphasizes  a  very  important  truth  —  it  insists 
strenuously  upon  the  validity  of  the  application  of  mathematical 
reasonings  to  phenomena.  In  this  it  is  wholly  in  the  right,  for 
here  it  is  recognizing  the  system  of  relations  which  obtains  within 
our  experience  as  a  whole.  Its  only  error  —  that  is,  its  only  funda- 
mental error  —  lies  in  supposing  that  in  dealing  with  any  single 
intuition  it  is  dealing  with  "  real  "  space  and  "  real  "  things.  If  the 
Berkeleian  will  admit  that  "real"  space  is  infinitely  divisible  (as 
it  may  be),  and  if  the  Kantian  will  admit  that  "  real "  space  is  not 
given  in  any  intuition  (as  it  certainly  is  not),  there  need  be  no 
quarrel  between  them. 

We  shall  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  problem  of  the  nature 
of  time. 


CHAPTER   XIII 
OF   TIME 

THE  seeming  self-contradictions  which  have  so  often  raised  their 
menacing  heads  in  the  pathway  of  the  philosopher  who  has  had  the 
temerity  to  discuss  the  nature  of  space,  are  reinforced  by  an  ally 
of  peculiarly  truculent  aspect,  when  it  is  a  question,  not  of  space, 
but  of  time.  When  we  occupy  ourselves  with  the  infinity  and 
infinite  divisibility  of  time,  we  meet  the  same  problems  that  con- 
front us  when  we  consider  the  infinity  and  infinite  divisibility  of 
space.  But  when  we  think  of  time  as  consisting  of  parts  which 
are  not  simultaneous  but  successive,  as  made  up  of  past,  present, 
and  future,  the  very  ground  on  which  we  stand  seems  to  sink 
beneath  us  and  to  leave  us  suspended  in  the  void.  We  are  dis- 
cussing time,  as  though  we  meant  something  by  the  word ;  and 
yet,  has  the  word  really  a  meaning  ?  Can  there  be  such  a  thing  as 
a  consciousness  of  time  ?  The  problem  is  not  a  new  one.  It  has 
been  stated  with  such  admirable  lucidity  by  Augustine,  that  I  can- 
not do  better  than  to  refer  to  certain  passages  in  the  "  Confessions  " : 

"  What,  then,  is  time  ?  If  no  one  asks  me,  I  know ;  if  I  try  to 
explain  it  to  one  who  asks,  I  do  not  know;  yet  I  say  with  con- 
fidence that  I  know.  But  if  nothing  passed  away,  there  would 
be  no  past  time ;  if  nothing  were  to  come,  there  would  be  no 
future  time ;  if  nothing  were,  there  would  be  no  present  time. 
Yet  those  two  times,  past  and  future,  how  can  they  be,  when  the 
past  is  not  now,  and  the  future  is  not  yet?  As  for  the  present, 
if  it  were  always  present,  and  did  not  pass  over  into  the  past,  it 
would  not  be  time  but  eternity."  l 

Yet,  says  Augustine,  we  talk  of  a  long  time  and  a  short  time, 
though  only  in  dealing  with  time  past  or  future.  But  how  can 
that  which  is  not  be  long  or  short?  We  cannot,  then,  say  of  the 
past  or  the  future,  is  long ;  but  we  must  say  of  the  one,  was  long, 
and  of  the  other  will  be  long.  While  present,  the  past  had  exist- 

1  Book  XI,  Chapters  H  and  15. 
194 


Of  Time  195 

ence,  and  so  might  have  been  long.  But  no !  the  past  did  not 
then  exist ;  it  was  the  present  alone  that  existed.  The  present  is 
the  only  existent,  and,  hence,  if  anything  can  be  long,  it  must  be 
the  present. 

We  are,  then,  absolutely  shut  up  to  present  time.  Can  this 
be  long?  We  speak  of  the  present  century,  year,  month,  or 
day,  but  evidently  in  a  loose  sense  of  the  word  "present." 

"Even  a  single  hour  passes  in  fleeting  moments;  as  much  of 
it  as  has  taken  flight  is  past,  what  remains  is  future.  If  we  can 
comprehend  any  time  that  is  divisible  into  no  parts  at  all,  or  per- 
haps into  the  minutest  parts  of  moments,  this  alone  let  us  call 
present ;  yet  this  speeds  so  hurriedly  from  the  future  to  the  past 
that  it  does  not  endure  even  for  a  little  space.  If  it  has  duration, 
it  is  divided  into  a  past  and  a  future;  but  the  present  has  no 
duration. 

"  Where,  then,  is  the  time  that  we  may  call  long  ?  Is  it 
future  ?  We  do  not  say  of  the  future :  it  is  long ;  for  as  yet 
there  exists  nothing  to  be  long.  We  say:  it  will  be  long.  But 
when  ?  If  while  yet  future,  it  will  not  be  long,  for  nothing  will 
yet  exist  to  be  long.  And  if  it  will  be  long,  when,  from  a  future 
as  yet  non-existent,  it  has  become  a  present,  and  has  begun  to 
be,  that  it  may  be  something  that  is  long ;  then  present  time  cries 
out  in  the  words  of  the  preceding  paragraph  that  it  cannot  be 
long." 

So  much  for  the  unreasonable  nature  of  time  as  consisting  of 
past,  present,  and  future.  The  pass  really  seems  to  be  rather  a  bad 
one.  Past  time  is  not  now,  future  time  is  not  yet,  and  present 
time  has  no  duration.  We  are  reduced  to  a  limiting  point  be- 
tween two  non-existents,  and  all  our  apparatus  of  years,  months, 
days,  hours  —  the  quart-pots  and  pint-pots  which  we  have  pre- 
pared to  measure  our  commodity  —  must,  it  appears,  remain  empty 
for  lack  of  something  to  fill  them. 

From  the  persecutions  of  such  metaphysical  reflections  there 
remains,  of  course,  the  refuge  of  common-sense  fact:  "Yet, 
Lord,  we  do  perceive  periods  of  time,  and  compare  them  with 
one  another,  and  call  some  longer,  others  shorter."1  "What 
then,  is  time  ?  if  no  one  asks  me,  I  know ;  if  I  try  to  explain  it 
to  one  who  asks,  I  do  not  know ;  yet,  I  say  with  confidence  that 
I  know."  The  position  is  well  taken,  but  it  is  clear  that,  when 

1  Op.  cit.,  Chapter  16. 


196  The  External  World 

one  rests  in  this,  the  flight  is  from  bad  metaphysics  to  no  meta- 
physics at  all,  from  an  unlucky  attempt  at  analysis  to  a  contented 
acceptance  of  unanalyzed  experience.  It  is  thus  that  the  plain 
man  rejects  with  disgust  attempted  proofs  of  the  non-existence 
of  an  external  world,  or  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  the  plausibilities  of 
the  solipsist.  He  does  not  see  what  is  wrong,  but  he  feels  blindly 
that  something  must  be  wrong,  and  he  elects  to  follow  his 
instinctive  feeling. 

A  reflective  man  cannot,  however,  contentedly  abandon  all 
metaphysical  analysis.  It  is  not  enough  to  feel  sure  that  we  are 
somehow  conscious  of  time  as  past,  present,  and  future,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  the  past  and  future  are  not,  and  the  present 
is  the  only  real  existent.  The  question  inevitably  arises:  What 
does  all  this  mean?  and  the  question  presses  insistently  for  an 
answer.  An  answer  that  is  either  too  vague  to  convey  any  defi- 
nite meaning,  or  too  inconsistent  to  command  the  respect  of  the 
logician,  is  no  answer  at  all.  It  should  be  rejected  in  the  interests 
of  a  new  investigation,  whatever  the  array  of  authorities  that  may 
be  drawn  up  behind  it. 

Augustine  is  too  much  of  a  philosopher  to  be  content  with  a 
mere  appeal  to  common  sense.  He  tries  seriously  to  meet  the 
difficulty  that  stares  him  in  the  face.  But  the  solution  which  he 
offers  us  consists  in  simply  transferring  the  problem  from  the 
field  of  metaphysics  to  that  of  psychology.  In  the  mind  we  find 
expectation,  apprehension  of  the  present,  and  memory.  It  is 
memory  and  expectation  that  we  measure,  and  not  time.  Future 
time  is  not  long,  for  it  as  yet  is  not;  but  a  "long  future"  is  "a 
long  expectation  of  the  future."  Nor  is  past  time  long,  for  it  is 
not ;  but  a  long  past  is  "  a  long  memory  of  the  past." 

For  example,  Augustine  is  about  to  repeat  a  Psalm  that  he 
knows.  Before  he  begins,  his  expectation  extends  over  the 
whole.  A  little  later,  a  portion  of  the  Psalm  is  "  extended  along  " 
his  memory.  Finally,  all  the  expectation  is  exhausted,  and 
memory  covers  the  complete  field.  Through  the  apprehension 
of  the  present,  expectation  passes  over  into  memory,  and  memory 
and  expectation  can  be  measured,  for  they  are  not  non-existent 
as  are  past  and  future.  Thus  we  do  not,  strictly  speaking,  meas- 
ure time,  but  we  do  measure  memory  and  expectation,  so  that 
what  we  call  measures  of  time  are  not  without  their  significance.1 
1  Op.  etc.,  Chapters  27,  28. 


Of  Time  197 

This  strikes  one  as  rather  ingenious,  but  it  is  not  difficult  to 
see  that  the  problem  is  made  no  whit  easier  of  solution  by  being 
transplanted  to  a  new  field.  Expectation  gives  place  to  memory, 
as  the  future  runs  over  into  the  past  —  the  one  diminishes,  the  other 
grows.  But  can  changes  take  place  in  an  indivisible  instant? 
Are  not  at  least  two  instants  essential  to  change  of  any  sort? 
Can  the  two  instants  exist  simultaneously?  If  not,  then,  while 
the  one  is,  the  other  is  not  ;  and  we  can  at  no  time  be  conscious  of 
succession  or  change,  for  we  can  only  be  conscious  of  what  is  exist- 
ent. We  may  have,  then,  at  a  given  instant,  what  I  may  call  a 
"  variegated  "  consciousness,  but  it  can  hardly  be  a  consciousness  of 
past,  present,  and  future,  for  past  and  future  do  not  mean  to  us 
merely  such  and  such  elements  in  the  consciousness  of  the  present 
moment.  The  past  means  that  which  has  been  present.  But 
when?  At  the  present  moment?  No,  at  some  past  moment. 
But  what  is  a  past  moment?  Can  we  be  conscious  of  it  in  the 
present,  the  only  existent?  It  is  clear  that  Augustine  seems  to 
himself  to  have  solved  his  problem  merely  because  he  has  carried 
it  into  a  somewhat  obscure  region  in  which  it  no  longer  stands  out 
as  a  problem.  He  unconsciously  gathers  up  the  past  into  memory, 
and  the  future  into  expectation,  and  makes  both  in  a  sense  present, 
without  letting  them  lose  quite  all  their  significance  as  past 
and  future.  Obscurity  is  a  great  reconciler  of  contradictions,  and 
Augustine,  like  many  another  philosopher,  believes  that  he  has 
seen  most  clearly  where  the  field  of  vision  has  been  most  faintly 
illuminated. 

Thus  Augustine  has  left  the  problem  as  he  found  it.  How 
can  we  be  conscious  of  time  as  past,  present,  and  future?  Can  we 
be  conscious  of  what  does  not  exist?  Can  the  consciousness  of  a 
punctual  present  be  called  a  consciousness  of  time  ?  Surely  the 
problem  cries  out  for  an  answer. 

That  a  satisfactory  answer  can  be  found,  and  that  we  are  not 
forced  to  accept  as  insoluble  any  of  the  antinomies  that  have  been 
supposed  to  arise  out  of  the  nature  of  time,  I  think  is  reasonably 
clear.  In  treating  of  time  I  shall  not  be  forced  to  enter  so  fully 
into  detail  as  I  should,  had  I  not  already  discussed  the  nature  of 
space.  I  shall  first  briefly  criticise  the  Kantian  doctrine ;  I  shall 
then  give  in  outline  the  opposing  doctrine,  which  I  have  called 
the  Berkeleian ;  finally,  I  shall  try  to  answer  the  objections 
which  may  be  urged  against  the  latter,  discussing,  among  other 


198  The  External  World 

things,  the  problem  upon  which  I  have  dwelt  in  the  pages  pre- 
ceding. 

The  Kantian  doctrine  of  time  as  a  "  necessary  form  "  of  intui- 
tion is  open  to  the  same  objections  as  the  Kantian  doctrine  of 
space. 

It  is  palpably  absurd  to  say  that  infinite  time  is  given  in  an 
original  intuition,1  and  it  is  only  by  playing  upon  the  ambiguity 
of  that  word  that  the  statement  can  be  given  the  least  plausibility. 
We  are  no  more  intuitively  conscious  of  infinite  time  than  we  are 
of  infinite  space.  The  pretended  proof  that  the  assumption  of  the 
infinity  of  time  is  a  necessity  of  thought,  is  the  identical  quibble 
which  is  used  to  prove  space  necessarily  infinite ;  we  cannot,  it  is 
said,  conceive  a  time  before  which  there  was  no  time.2  This  means, 
of  course,  that  we  cannot  conceive  a  time  in  the  time  before  which 
there  was  no  time.  Manifestly  we  cannot,  just  as  we  cannot  con- 
ceive a  number  the  number  before  which  was  not  a  number ;  but 
it  is  foolish  to  attempt  a  foolish  task,  and  foolish  to  find  a  profound 
significance  in  the  failure  to  accomplish  it.  And  the  argument 
that  the  world  must  have  existed  through  infinite  past  time  because 
void  time  is  not  enough  of  a  thing  to  limit  the  world's  existence, 
is  the  creation  of  information  out  of  nothing  already  criticised  in 
the  case  of  space. 

When  we  turn  from  the  consideration  of  time  as  infinitely 
extended  to  that  of  time  as  infinitely  divisible,  we  do  not  find  the 
Kantian  doctrine  more  satisfactory.  The  difficulties  met  with  in 
discussing  the  doctrine  of  space,  all  present  themselves  once  more. 
Are  we  directly  conscious  of  time  as  infinitely  divisible?  Does 
a  period  of  ten  seconds  seem  to  us  to  be  composed  of  an  endless 
number  of  lesser  divisions  of  time  ?  Do  we  perceive  the  succession 
of  these  constituent  parts  of  the  whole  ?  And  if  not,  what  does 
it  mean  to  say  that  the  infinite  divisibility  of  time  is  matter  of 
intuition?  Surely  the  word  covers  some  ambiguity. 

Furthermore,  if  time  is  infinitely  divisible  in  such  a  sense  that 
those  ten  seconds,  of  which  I  am  conscious  as  they  pass,  are 
infinitely  divisible  into  lesser  divisions  of  time,  how  is  it  con- 
ceivable that  any  division  of  time  whatever  should  come  to 
an  end? 

1  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Transcendental  -(Esthetic  ;  Metaphysical  Expo- 
sition of  the  Conception  of  Time. 

2  Hamilton,  "  Metaph.,"  XXXVIII;  Spencer,  "First  Principles,"  Chapter  III. 


Of  Time  199 

We  have  seen  that  Kant  passes  very  lightly  over  this  diffi- 
culty :  "  I  cannot  represent  to  myself  any  line,  however  small, 
without  drawing  it  in  thought,  i.e.  from  a  point  generating  all  its 
parts  successively,  and  thus  alone  producing  the  intuition.  So  it  is 
also  in  the  case  of  every,  even  the  smallest,  portion  of  time.  In 
it  I  represent  to  myself  only  the  successive  progress  from  moment 
to  moment,  and  this,  by  the  addition  of  all  the  bits  of  time,  finally 
begets  a  determinate  quantity  of  time."  That  maddening  " suc- 
cessive progress  from  moment  to  moment "  !  How  is  it  accom- 
plished? It  seems  so  easy;  and  yet,  to  the  Kantian,  it  is  so 
hopelessly  impossible.  Has  a  moment  parts  ?  Yes,  it  is  a  "  bit 
of  time  "  (Zeitthdl),  and  must  not  only  contain  parts,  but  even 
an  infinite  number  of  parts  — "  all  phenomena  are  intuited  as 
aggregates,  as  consisting  of  a  multiplicity  of  previously  given 
parts  "  —  so  that  we  cannot  conceive  any  fraction  of  a  moment 
which  is  not  as  much  of  a  problem  as  the  moment  itself,  or,  for 
that  matter,  as  a  year  or  a  century.  How,  then,  does  time  pass  ? 
By  the  successive  addition  of  moments  ?  As  well  say,  by  the  suc- 
cessive addition  of  centuries.  In  giving  such  an  answer  one  has 
said  nothing  at  all.  No  self-respecting  Kantian  can  represent  to 
himself  "the  successive  progress  from  moment  to  moment,"  for 
the  Kantian  moment,  which  can  only  be  completed  by  the  suc- 
cessive addition  of  an  endless  number  of  parts,  will  never  come  to 
an  end.  "  But,"  says  the  Kantian,  "  it  does  come  to  an  end,  and 
there  is  a  successive  progress  from  moment  to  moment."  This 
can  only  mean  that  no  moment  is  a  Kantian  moment.  The  infer- 
ence is  unavoidable. 

I  have  said  that,  in  writing  the  above  description  of  our  method 
of  begetting  a  determinate  quantity  of  time,  Kant  evidently  for- 
got for  the  moment  that  he  was  a  Kantian.1  That  he  was  capable 
of  this  lapse  is  made  very  clear  by  another  passage  in  the  "  Critique." 
He  writes :  "  If  we  leave  out  of  consideration  the  succession  of 
many  sensations,  apprehension  through  mere  sensation  fills  but 
one  moment.  As  something  in  the  phenomenon  the  apprehension 
of  which  is  not  a  successive  synthesis  proceeding  from  parts  to  the 
whole  presentation,  it  has,  hence,  no  extensive  magnitude ;  thus 
the  absence  of  sensation  in  this  moment  would  present  it  as  empty, 
and,  therefore,  as  =  0."  2 

1  See  the  preceding  chapter. 

2  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Anticipations  of  Perception. 


200  The  External  World 

The  moment  of  which  Kant  is  speaking  I  am  tempted  to  call 
a  Berkeleian  moment.  It  has  no  parts  ;  it  is  not  extended :  yet  it 
is  not  a  mere  nonentity,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that,  deprived 
of  its  "  filling,"  it  is  equated  with  zero.  It  is  given  in  intuition  ; 
it  is  a  unit,  not  an  aggregate ;  and  it  may  be  "  filled."  This  differ- 
entiates it  from  the  mathematical  point,  which  is  conceived  to  be 
the  limit  of  two  spaces,  and  itself  incapable  of  receiving  any  "  fill- 
ing "  whatever.  A  moment  filled  with  sensation  is  not  the  theo- 
retical limit  of  two  times  —  a  mere  mathematical  point  in  the  line 
which  represents  time.  It  is  an  element  in  our  intuitive  experi- 
ence of  duration ;  and  is  the  ultimate  element.  Given  such  ele- 
ments in  intuition,  and  the  addition  of  them  is  not  an  inconceivable 
thing.  But,  then,  there  is  no  room  for  such  in  the  Kantian  philos- 
ophy. Our  philosopher  has  lapsed  into  a  truth  which  strict  con- 
sistency would  have  denied  him. 

Thus  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  a  time  given  in  intuition  as 
infinite  in  extent  and  infinitely  divisible  is  plainly  untenable.  It 
cannot  be  set  forth  in  clear  and  simple  language,  stripped  of  verbal 
ambiguities,  without  revealing  this  fact.  Since  the  doctrine  runs 
out  into  palpable  self-contradictions,  we  may  be  sure  that  no 
opposing  doctrine  can  be  more  unsatisfactory.  Hence,  if  we  are 
wise,  we  will  abandon  the  Kantian  position  without  reluctance  ; 
setting  out  upon  our  voyage  of  discovery,  not  as  unwilling  exiles, 
facing  the  unknown  with  foreboding,  but  as  cheerful  emigrants, 
full  of  confidence  'that  the  extrernest  rigors  of  the  possible  future 
cannot  exceed  the  hardships  experienced  in  the  past.  For,  indeed, 
than  the  Kantian  doctrine,  taken  as  it  stands,  it  is  quite  evident 
that  nothing  can  be  worse.  Can  anything  be  more  contrary  to 
experienced  fact  than  the  statement  that  infinite  space  and  infinite 
time  are  immediately  given  in  intuition  ?  Are  a  round  square,  a 
triangular  parallelogram,  dry  moisture  or  wooden  iron,  more  repel- 
lent to  the  intelligence  than  an  endless  series  that  ends  ?  than  the 
moving  point  on  the  Kantian  line  ?  than  the  flight  of  Kantian 
moments  ? 

But  here,  as  in  the  case  of  space,  it  is  well  to  remember  that 
the  error  in  the  Kantian  doctrine  can  readily  be  eliminated  by 
emphasizing  an  obvious  distinction  —  the  distinction  between  the 
crude  intuition  of  duration  given  in  a  single  experience,  and  the 
conceptual  time  which  is  built  up  out  of  such  materials.  The  dis- 
tinction is  that  between  appearance  and  reality,  and  it  is  quite  as 


Of  Time  201 

important  to  lay  stress  upon  it  when  treating  of  time,  as  it  is  when 
treating  of  space.  If  the  Kantian  will  but  bear  in  mind  that  the 
time  which  he  may  consider  as  infinitely  divisible  —  the  time  of 
the  movement  of  the  mathematical  point  over  the  mathematical 
line — is  "real"  time,  and  something  quite  different  from  the 
duration  experienced  in  any  intuition,  he  may  lay  the  utmost 
emphasis  upon  the  validity  of  the  application  of  mathematics  to 
phenomena,  without  involving  himself  in  inconsistencies. 

The  doctrine  which  I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  calling  the 
Berkeleian  does  take  cognizance  of  this  distinction,  and  avoids  the 
pitfalls  into  which  those  who  fail  to  recognize  it  are  precipitated. 
It  does  not  require  us  to  believe  any  such  startling  statement  as 
that  we  are  immediately  conscious  of  infinite  space  and  infinite 
time,  when  we  know  very  well  that  even  the  distance  to  the  neigh- 
boring town,  and  the  past  three  years  of  our  lives,  can  be  repre- 
sented in  our  consciousness  only  by  means  of  the  symbol,  a  skeleton 
representative  never  to  be  confounded  with  that  for  which  it  stands. 
It  does  not  try  to  persuade  us  that  the  ten  seconds  during  which 
we  are  listening  to  the  tick  of  the  clock  are  given  in  intuition  as 
composed  of  an  infinite  number  of  lesser  bits  of  time,  and  that 
these  come  to  an  end  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  they  are  end- 
less. It  recognizes  the  distinction  between  appearance  and  reality  ; 
and  emphasizes  the  truth  that  our  experiences  fall  into  a  system, 
that  any  single  experience  gains  its  significance  from  its  place  in 
that  system,  and  that,  when  we  speak  of  the  "  real "  in  any  but  a 
relative  sense,  we  are  not  resting  in  a  single  intuition  as  such,  but 
are  thinking  of  something  more.  The  doctrine  may  be  set  forth 
as  follows  :  — 

1.  As  there  is  a  crude  experience  of  extension  which  is  not  to 
be  confounded  with  "  real "  space,  but  furnishes  its  "  raw  mate- 
rial," so  there  is  a  crude  intuition  of  duration  which  is  the  founda- 
tion of  our  notion  of  "real"  time.     We  may,  if  we  please,  call 
this  a  "  form  "  of  our  intuition ;  it  is  an  element  in  our  experience. 

2.  We  are,  thus,  intuitively  conscious  of  time  past,  present, 
and  future. 

3.  The  time  of  which  we  are  thus  intuitively  conscious  is  not 
infinite.     We  mean  something,  it  is  true,  when  we  speak  of  infi- 
nite time,  just  as  we  mean  something  when  we  speak  of  an  infinite 
universe ;  but  in  neither  case  are  we  intuitively  conscious  of  the 
infinity  of  that  whereof  we  speak. 


202  The  External  World 

4.  Nor  is  the  time  given  in  a  single  intuition  composed  of  an 
infinite  number  of  bits  of  time.     We  are  not  directly  conscious  of 
these  subdivisions,  and  it  is  not  reasonable  to  infer  their  existence. 
It  is  as  absurd  to  assume  it  as  it  is  to  assume  that  a  particular 
finite  line,  given  in  a  single  intuitive  experience,  is  composed  of 
an  endless  number  of  bits  of  line. 

5.  But  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  remember  that  no 
such  single  experience  of  duration  constitutes  what  we  mean  by 
"  real "  time.     "  Real  "  time,  the  time  with  which  science  deals,  is 
the  time  occupied  by  the  changes  in  "real"  things,  and  it  is,  of 
course,  as  remote  from  our  immediate  intuitive  experience  as  are 
the  "  real "  things  themselves.     Even  in  common  life,  although  we 
never  think  of  raising  the  question  of  what  is  contained  in  pure 
intuition  and   what  is  only  symbolically  known,  we  distinguish 
between  "real"  time  and  apparent;  and  we  say  that  half  an  hour 
spent  in  listening  to  a  prosy  sermon  seems  long,  just  as  we  say  that 
the  moon  seen  at  the  horizon  seems  large.     The  "  real "  size  of  the 
moon,  and  the  "  real "  half-hour  are  standards  arrived  at  only  after 
the  comparison  with  each  other  of  a  vast  number  of  individual 
experiences,  and  an  observation  of  the  relations  to  each  other  into 
which  these  fall. 

It  is  this  "  real "  time,  the  time  occupied  by  the  change  in 
"real"  things,  that  we  may  conceive  as  infinitely  divisible.  Just 
as  the  space  occupied  by  an  atom  is  something  for  science,  although 
it  lies  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  most  discriminating  sense-per- 
ception, so  the  time  occupied  by  the  vibration  of  an  atom  may  be 
something  for  science,  a  something  to  be  expressed  by  figures,  a 
duration  that  may  be  halved  or  doubled,  that  may  stand  in  all 
sorts  of  exact  relations  to  the  durations  of  which  consciousness 
takes  cognizance,  yet  it  is  not  a  something  of  which  we  may  be 
directly  conscious  as  duration.  In  the  complex  of  experiences 
which  is  for  us  the  real  world,  the  symbol  which  stands  for  such 
periods  of  time  is  not  without  its  significance.  Indeed,  the  real 
world  in  time  would  be  a  thing  very  imperfectly  ordered  and 
explained,  were  processes  in  it  not  assumed  to  be  divisible  after 
this  fashion. 

There  is  a  close  parallel  between  our  cognition  of  spaces  and 
of  times.  "  Real "  space  and  "  real "  time  are  something  quite 
distinct  from  the  crude  extension  and  duration  given  in  intuition. 
One  may  perfectly  well  hold  them  to  be  infinitely  divisible,  and 


Of  Time  203 

yet  maintain  that  the  recognition  of  part  out  of  part  in  any  intui- 
tion can  proceed  only  up  to  a  given  point,  whether  we  are 
concerned  with  spatial  or  with  temporal  extension.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  remember  that  the  particular  intuition  with  which 
one  may  be  dealing  is  not,  in  itself,  infinitely  divisible,  but  that 
this  experience  may  be  made  to  stand  as  representative  of  a  multi- 
tude of  others.  The  moment  given  in  intuition,  the  moment  of 
which  Kant  has  spoken  as  "  filled  "  with  sensation,  may  thus  be 
converted  into  the  "  real "  moment,  which  must  never  turn  out  to 
be  a  "  real "  time,  however  short,  but  must  remain  an  ideal  limit 
between  two  times.  This  has  its  parallel  in  the  mathematical  point. 
To  the  above  doctrine  touching  the  nature  of  "  crude  "  and 
"  real "  time,  there  may  be  raised  several  objections :  — 

1.  It  may  be  argued  that  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  part 
of  time  that  is  not  itself  time,  i.e.  a  something  composed  of  parts. 
It  may  be  admitted  that,  when  we  see  a  flash  of  lightning,  we  are 
conscious  only  of  a  blinding  streak  upon  a  background  of  leaden 
sky,  and  we  are  not  conscious  of  the  "generation  "  of  the  parts  of 
this  wonder  "from  a  point."     As  the  direction  of  the  bolt  remains 
problematic,  and  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  between  beginning 
and  end,  it  is  clear  that  the  production  of  the  path  cannot  be  per- 
ceived to  occupy  time.     Still,  it  may  be  insisted,  whether  the  phe- 
nomenon seem  to  occupy  time  or  not,  one  cannot  think  of  it  as  not 
occupying  time.     It  will  be  seen  that  this  objection  has  already 
been  answered  in  discussing  space.      Thinking  about  the  experi- 
ence means  nothing  more  nor  less  than  passing  from  appearance  to 
reality,  from  the  intuition  to  that  for  which  it  stands.     Of  course, 
one  must  think  of  the   "  real "   time  represented  by  an  intuited 
moment  as  extended  and  divisible,  but  that  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  point  in  dispute. 

2.  It  may  be  argued,  again,  that  one  can  never  manufacture 
time  by  simply  putting  together  elements  each  of  which  has  no 
duration  at  all  —  by  the  addition  of  the  mere  moments  that  Kant 
inconsistently  recognized.     This  objection,  too,  has  virtually  been 
answered.     I  may  remark,  in  passing,  that  is  not  an  objection  over 
which  it  is  prudent  for  the  Kantian  to  linger.     For  if  a  moment 
itself  has  duration,  he  cannot  compass,  as  we  have  seen,  his  "  suc- 
cessive progress  from  moment  to  moment  "  ;  and  if  it  has  no  dura- 
tion, he  cannot  by  such  progress  hope  to  "beget"  time.     In  either 
case  he  is  reduced  to  "  marking  time  "  on  the  same  spot.     But  the 


204  The  External  World 

fact  is,  that  it  is  pure  dogmatism  to  assert  that  moments  without 
parts  cannot,  when  added  together,  constitute  time.  The  impulse 
to  this  error  —  a  very  natural  one  —  lies  in  confusing  moments 
given  in  intuition  with  the  "  real  "  moments  which  we  conceive  as 

O 

mere  limits  to  periods  of  time,  and  which  have  their  parallel,  not 
in  the  minimum  sensibile,  but  in  the  mathematical  point. 

3.  In  the  third  place,  one  may  object  that,  if  the  duration  of 
which  we  are  conscious  in  a  single  intuition  be  not  infinitely  divis- 
ible, but  divisible  only  into  a  finite  number  of  ultimate  elements, 
consciousness  ought  to  be  able  to  distinguish  these  elements  arid 
give  some  account  of  their  number.     This  third  objection  may  be 
answered  as  I  have  answered  the  similar  objection  brought  against 
the  Berkeleian  doctrine  of  space.     What  is  in  consciousness  is  not 
necessarily  in  a  clear   analytical  consciousness,  nor   well   distin- 
guished from  other  mental  elements.     Were  it  possible,  with  the 
aid  of  direct  introspection,  to  describe  offhand  all  that  is  to  be 
found  in  consciousness,  the  psychologist  and  the   epistemologist 
would  have  an    easy  task.     When    we   bear  in  mind,  moreover, 
that  our  crude  intuitive  experiences  of  duration  hold  much  the 
same  relation  to  "real"  time  that  our  visual  signs  of  distance  and 
magnitude  hold  to  "  real "  space,  we  need  not  find  it  surprising 
that  our  immediate  intuition  of  duration  is  rather  a  thing  to  be 
guessed  at  than  a  thing  revealed  to  clear  vision.     Time  intuited  is 
a  sign  of  time  thought,  and  the  mind  does  not  rest  in  signs,  but 
hurries  on  to  something  beyond. 

4.  Finally  we  come  to  a  more  serious  objection.     How  can 
time  —  even  "crude"  time  —  be  given  in  intuition,  when  time  is 
composed  of  moments  no  one  of  which  can  alone  constitute  time, 
and  no  two  of  which  can  exist  simultaneously  ?     This  is  the  diffi- 
culty so  acutely  urged  by  Augustine.     The  past  is  not  now;  the 
future  is  not  yet ;  the  present  is  a  mere  point,  and  not  enough, 
in  itself,  to  constitute  time.     How  can  we,  then,  be  conscious  of 
time  at  all  ?     Can  we  be  conscious  of  what  is  not  now,  or  of  what 
is  not  yet  ?     The  single  present  moment  which  sums  up  our  actual 
consciousness  can  give  us  no  inkling  of  duration.     If  we  admit 
that  the  past  exists,  it  is  not  yet  past,  and  if  we  maintain  that  it 
does  not  exist,  it  surely,  as  non-existent,  is  incapable  of  being  given 
with  the  present  moment  in  a  single  intuition.      How  can  there  be, 
under  the  circumstances,  even  the  crudest  intuition  of  duration? 

It  is  safe  to  assume  that  there  must  be  some  way  of  escape 


Of  Time  205 

from  this  difficulty,  for  we  surely  mean  something  by  past  and 
future.  We  are  conscious  of  duration  in  time  as  certainly  as  we 
are  conscious  of  extension  in  space.  The  question  before  us  is 
only  one  of  analysis,  and  though  our  attempts  at  analysis  may 
seem  to  lead  us  into  strange  paths,  we  need  not  despair  of  the 
ultimate  solution  of  the  problem.  We  have  seen  that  other  anti- 
nomies have  arisen,  not  out  of  the  very  nature  of  things,  but  out 
of  the  infirmities  of  philosophers,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  believe 
that  such  must  be  the  case  here  also. 

Two  things  appear  indubitable  :  first,  that  we  really  mean  some- 
thing when  we  speak  of  periods  of  time  ;  and  second,  that  we  could 
not  represent  these  even  symbolically,  were  not  something  given  in 
intuition  that  could  furnish  a  content  for  our  symbol.  Something 
we  must  have  to  start  with,  or  the  sjanbol  is  a  word  in  an 
unknown  tongue  ;  it  means  nothing.  A  short  line  may  represent 
a  long  one,  for  both  have  extension  ;  but  a  mathematical  point  can- 
not represent  a  line  as  extended.  Even  so,  if  no  duration  is  given 
in  any  intuition,  what  is  in  mind  when  we  say  a  month,  a  year,  a 
century,  cannot  be  duration.  It  would  be  quite  impossible  to 
represent  symbolically  the  changes  in  a  "  real  "  world  were  there  no 
immediate  consciousness  of  change. 

The  psychologists  have  described  with  some  minuteness  the 
rise  in  a  consciousness  of  the  notion  of  time.  A  sensation  is 
present ;  it  fades  gradually  into  a  faint  image  of  itself :  an  idea  is 
present ;  it  develops  the  life  and  vigor  of  a  sensation.  In  such 
experiences  we  have  the  discrimination  of  memory  and  expecta- 
tion from  actual  sensation,  and  from  such  beginnings  grows  the 
consciousness  of  a  world  of  things  in  time.  With  the  analysis  of 
the  psychologists  we  can  have  no  quarrel ;  but  it  is  of  much  im- 
portance to  emphasize  the  truth  pointed  out  earlier  in  this  paper, 
namely,  that  no  instantaneous  photograph  of  a  consciousness, 
whatever  the  elements  it  may  contain,  can  yield  the  intuition  of 
duration.  This  cannot  consist  in  the  mere  presence  in  conscious- 
ness at  any  given  instant  of  sensation  and  ideas.  The  past  is 
not  merely  a  mass  of  consciousness-elements  fainter  than  sen- 
sations ;  it  is  what  has  been  sensation.  Consciousness  of  the  past 
as  past  implies  consciousness  of  change,  and  consciousness  of 
change  cannot  be  given  in  an  indivisible  instant.  The  span  of 
consciousness,  if  I  may  so  speak,  must  include  more  than  an  in- 
stant, or  there  can  be  no  consciousness  of  time. 


206  The  External  World 

But  how  can  the  span  of  consciousness  be  thus  extended  ?  Is 
it  possible  for  a  past  and  a  future,  however  brief,  which  are, 
nevertheless,  past  and  future,  and  hence  do  not  exist,  to  form 
part  of  one  intuition  with  present  sensation  ?  Can  the  non- 
existent be  given  in  intuition? 

What  seems  the  most  natural  answer  to  this  question  is  the 
ancient  one.  Past  and  future  do  not  exist,  but  they  are  present 
through  their  representative  —  the  thought  of  them  is  present.  It 
is  plain  from  what  has  been  said  above,  that  this  answer  cannot  be 
regarded  as  satisfactory.  Nothing  can  truly  symbolize  change  but 
change,  nothing  duration  but  duration.  There  can  be  no  thought 
of  time  to  a  creature  to  whom  no  intuition  of  time  is  possible.  If 
a  consciousness  embraces  only  the  present,  not  the  conventional 
present  of  common  discourse  —  this  day,  this  week,  this  year  —  but 
the  timeless  present  of  a  moment,  it  can  contain  no  possible  com- 
plex of  elements  that  can  truly  be  called  the  thought  of  the  past  or 
the  future.  A  consciousness  that  is  to  think  time  must  embrace 
time,  must  cover  more  than  a  single  instant.  And  the  question 
thrusts  itself  upon  one :  Must  not  a  state  of  consciousness,  in  order 
to  do  this,  be  an  absurd  compound  of  existent  and  non-existent 
elements?  This  sounds  like  nonsense. 

With  all  due  respect  to  some  famous  thinkers  who  have  attacked 
the  problem  before,  I  venture  to  maintain  that  it  is  not  insoluble, 
and  at  the  same  time,  that  its  solution  does  not  necessitate  a  re- 
course to  those  mystical  speculations  that  solve  one  problem  by 
sinking  it  in  another.  The  difficulty  is,  I  think,  of  our  own 
making.  When  we  say:  How  can  you  be  conscious  of  the  past 
and  future  which  do  not  exist  ?  Can  one  be  conscious  of  the  non- 
existent? what  we  really  mean  is:  How  can  you,  at  the  present 
instant,  be  conscious  of  the  past  and  future,  which,  at  this  present 
instant,  do  not  exist?  Can  one,  at  this  moment,  be  conscious 
of  what  does  not  exist  at  this  moment?  To  the  question,  as  thus 
stated,  there  can  evidently  be  but  one  answer.  The  past  can 
certainly  not  be  given  in  the  present  moment,  or  it  would  not  be 
past.  The  present  moment  can  contain  only  the  present.  But 
it  should  be  observed  that  the  question  simply  assumes  that  con- 
sciousness is  limited  to  a  single  instant,  and  that  the  present  one. 
If  this  position  be  denied,  its  force  is  quite  lost.  I  can  be  conscious 
of  a  past  and  future,  which  do  not  now  exist,  if  the  span  of  my 
consciousness  covers  more  than  a  "now."  The  past  and  the  future 


Of  Time  207 

are  non-existent,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  present;  but  then  the 
present  must  be  regarded  as  non-existent  from  the  point  of  view  of 
past  or  future.  To  speak  of  the  intuitive  consciousness  of  dura- 
tion as  "  a  compound  of  existent  and  non-existent  elements  "  is 
unreasonable,  because  the  words  suggest  that  the  whole  conscious- 
ness ought  to  be  now  existent  —  which  is  impossible,  if  it  is  to  be 
consciousness  of  duration  —  and  lead  to  the  conclusion  that, 
since  it  cannot  all  be  now  existent,  it  must  be  a  compound  of 
something  and  nothing,  an  absurdity  over  which  you  may  weep  or 
make  merry  according  to  your  humor. 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  foregoing  I  have  had  no  recourse 
to  the  deus  ex  machina  of  a  timeless  self,  timelessly  present  at  all 
times,  and  collecting  the  fleeting  moments  upon  the  impalpable 
thread  of  its  own  "immovable  activity."  How  can  I,  asked 
Augustine,  be  conscious  of  a  past  that  does  not  exist  ?  Can  I  be 
conscious  of  the  non-existent?  The  difficulty  that  presented  itself 
to  his  mind  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  very  notion  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  duration  seemed  to  be  self-contradictory.  As  we  have 
seen,  there  is  a  hidden  pitfall  in  his  question,  and  when  this  is 
discovered,  it  can  be  avoided.  It  is  only  necessary  to  take  one's 
stand  upon  the  fact  that  we  really  are  conscious  of  duration,  and 
to  keep  clearly  in  view  what  this  implies.  When  we  do  this  we 
find  that  there  is  no  absurdity  in  the  notion  of  a  consciousness  of 
duration.  The  apparent  contradiction  has  arisen  from  the  fact 
that  such  a  consciousness  has  been  affirmed  and  denied  in  one 
breath. 

It  is,  thus,  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  Augustinian  problem  to 
show  that  there  is  nothing  inconceivable  in  the  fact  of  a  conscious- 
ness of  duration.  In  the  foregoing,  I  have  simply  accepted  the 
fact  as  a  fact,  and  have  made  no  effort  to  explain  how  it  is  possible 
that  there  can  be  such  a  consciousness.  This  latter  task  does  not 
appear  to  me  to  fall  within  the  legitimate  province  of  explanation. 
We  "explain  "  certain  experiences  by  referring  them  to  others,  as 
we  determine  "where"  a  thing  is  by  ascertaining  its  relations  to 
other  things  in  space ;  but  to  ask  how  it  happens  that  there  is  a 
consciousness  at  all,  or  that  it  is  constituted  as  it  is,  seems  about 
as  sensible  as  to  ask :  Where  is  all  space  ?  It  is  well  to  recog- 
nize that  a  "  how  "  and  a  "  where  "  may  be  so  used  as  to  lose  all 
significance. 

Nevertheless,  certain  philosophers  have  thought  it  necessary, 


208  The  External  World 

not  merely  to  accept  the  fact  of  a  consciousness  of  duration,  but 
to  go  further  and  to  explain  how  such  a  consciousness  is  made 
possible.  An  incomprehensible  something  was  (can  I  say  was  F) 
timelessly  present  (sic)  with  the  past,  and  is  (can  I  say  is  ?~)  time- 
lessly  present  (sic)  with  the  present  moment.  This  holds  the 
non-existent  past  to  the  existent  present,  and  makes  possible  a 
consciousness  of  duration. 

Can  any  man  conscientiously  maintain  that  all  this  ghostly 
apparatus  renders  more  comprehensible  the  fact  of  a  consciousness 
of  duration  ?  What  is  meant  by  timeless  presence  at  all  times  ? 
How  does  an  immovable  activity  manage  to  hold  things  together  ? 
If  we  cannot  expect  clear  information,  at  least  we  have  a  right  to 
look  for  a  hint.  It  is  no  explanation  simply  to  say  that  an  incon- 
ceivable something  does  something  incomprehensible  in  an  inde- 
scribable way.  The  fact  is  that  this  inconceivable  something  is 
not  really  any  kind  of  a  thing  at  all.  The  vague  and  inconsistent 
phrases  in  which  it  is  described  convey  to  the  mind  no  definite 
meaning,  and,  to  all  appearance,  are  not  intended  to  do  so.  I  have 
criticised  this  timeless  oddity  elsewhere,  and  have  given  its  pedi- 
gree,1 so  I  shall  not  dwell  upon  it  here.  It  is  the  shadowy  survival 
of  an  ancient  misconception,  and  its  presence  in  philosophical 
systems  can  only  be  explained  historically. 

Finally,  I  feel  justified  in  saying,  touching  this  attempt  to 
explain  the  possibility  of  a  consciousness  of  duration,  that  it  bor- 
rows what  plausibility  it  may  seem  to  have  from  the  tacit  assump- 
tion contained  in  the  Augustinian  query,  i.e.  from  the  denial  of  the 
consciousness  of  duration.  How  can  I  be  conscious  of  a  past  that 
does  not  exist  ?  asks  Augustine.  Can  I  be  conscious  of  the  non- 
existent? We  have  seen  that  this  assumes  it  to  be  self-evident 
that  we  can  be  conscious  only  of  the  existent  —  which  means  the 
at  present  existent,  or,  in  other  words,  the  present.  Even  so 
T.  H.  Green  assumes  that  the  consciousness  of  the  present  needs 
no  explanation,  and  that  the  consciousness  of  the  past  as  such  is 
an  impossibility.  As  he  must  accept  the  fact  that  there  is  some- 
how such  a  thing  as  a  consciousness  of  duration,  it  only  remains 
for  him  to  open  an  unexpected  door  in  the  blank  wall  that  con- 
fronts us,  by  making  the  past  in  some  sense  present  —  present  to  a 
something  not  itself  past  nor  yet  present,  a  something  that  exists 
simultaneously,  so  to  speak,  all  along  the  line.2  Such  a  thing  is 
1  See  Chapter  V.  2  "Prolegomena  to  Ethics,"  Chapter  L 


Of  Time  209 

evidently  a  mere  collocation  of  words,  a  series  of  marks  on  paper, 
not  enough  of  a  thing  to  be  brought  into  court  as  a  witness  to  the 
respectability  of  any  other  thing.  But,  by  taking  upon  its 
shoulders  the  task  of  obliterating  in  its  own  person  all  temporal 
distinctions,  it  makes  the  past  seem  not  quite  a  past  and  the  pres- 
ent not  quite  a  present. 

Thus  the  past  and  the  present  seem  in  some  vague  way  to  run 
together.  Time  is  rendered  more  incomprehensible  than  it  was 
before ;  there  may  be  a  "  presence  "  that  is  not  in  the  present,  an 
"always"  that  does  not  really  mean  at  all  times.  Words  have 
taken  the  place  of  thoughts,  and  clear  vision  no  longer  appears 
to  be  a  desideratum.  Surely  it  is  better  simply  to  accept  the  fact 
of  the  consciousness  of  duration,  and  to  exercise  such  care  in 
stating  problems  as  not  to  create  unnecessary  pitfalls.  Surely 
we  are  not  compelled  to  assume  gratuitously  that  different 
moments  need  to  be  "held  together,"  and  then  to  exercise  our 
ingenuity  in  the  invention  of  inconceivable  entities  to  which  we 
may  assign  this  task. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  REAL  WORLD  IN   SPACE  AND  TIME 

THE  preceding  chapters  have,  I  hope,  made  it  clear  that  the 
real  world  in  space  and  time  is  not  a  something  given  in  intuition, 
but  is  a  construct  from  what  is  thus  given.  The  real  world  is,  as 
it  is  sometimes  expressed,  a  conceptual  world.  It  is  of  no  small 
importance  to  realize  just  what  this  statement  means,  and  to  avoid 
drawing  from  it  unwarranted  conclusions. 

Are  we  justified  in  holding  that  space  and  time  are  concep- 
tions ?  That  depends  upon  the  meaning  that  we  give  to  the  term 
"conception."  The  statement  that  they  are  conceptions  may  very 
easily  be  misunderstood.  In  trying  to  make  clear  in  what  sense 
the  statement  may  be  accepted  as  true,  I  cannot  do  better  than  go 
back  for  a  while  to  that  wonderful  little  old  philosopher  of  Koe- 
nigsberg,  whose  sagacity  often  led  him  to  hit  upon  truths  which 
his  followers  would  see  with  clearer  vision  could  they  overcome 
the  amiable  weakness  of  turning  him  into  a  fetich,  and  could  they 
consent  to  criticise  him  with  the  same  freedom  with  which  they 
criticise  living  writers  who  propound  epistemological  theories. 

Kant  strenuously  maintains  that  space  and  time  are  not  con- 
ceptions, but  are  intuitions.  Now,  we  have  seen  that  he  uses  the 
word  "  intuition  "  in  two  senses,  one  of  which  is  a  very  dubious  sense, 
and  the  other  not  applicable  to  real  space  and  time  at  all.  And  those 
who  read  him  with  discrimination  will  see  that  when  he  comes  in 
certain  passages  to  contrast  intuitions  and  conceptions,  he  uses 
the  word  "  intuition  "  in  what  may  with  justice  be  regarded  as  a 
third  sense,  and  one  of  such  importance  that  it  should  be  distin- 
guished with  accuracy.  The  passages  to  which  I  refer  are  the 
following :  — 

"  Space  is  not  a  discursive,  or,  as  it  is  called,  a  general  concep- 
tion of  the  relations  of  things,  but  it  is  a  pure  intuition.  For,  in 
the  first  place,  we  can  represent  to  ourselves  but  one  single  space, 
and  when  we  talk  of  many  spaces,  we  only  mean  by  the  expression 

210 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  211 

parts  of  one  and  the  same  space.  And  these  parts  cannot  antecede 
the  one  all-embracing  space,  as  constituents  out  of  which  it  can  be 
built  up.  They  can  only  be  conceived  as  in  it.  Space  is  essentially 
one ;  the  manifold  in  space,  and,  hence,  too,  the  general  conception 
of  spaces,  depends  wholly  upon  limitations."  1 

"  Time  is  not  a  discursive,  or  as  we  say,  a  general  conception, 
but  is  a  pure  form  of  sense-intuition.  Different  times  are  but 
parts  of  one  and  the  same  time.  But  a  representation  which  can 
only  be  given  through  a  single  object  is  an  intuition."  2 

There  is  contained  in  these  extracts  a  truth  which  nearly  every 
one  will  be  heartily  inclined  to  accept.  I  stand  at  my  study 
window  and  look  out  upon  the  roofs  of  the  city.  The  world  in 
space  seems  to  be  spread  out  before  me.  My  body,  my  window, 
the  nearer  roofs,  the  more  remote,  the  steeples  in  the  distance,  the 
faint  blue  curve  of  the  river,  the  shadowy  woods  beyond  —  all 
these  have  their  places  in  the  same  one  space.  They  are  neighbors 
who  divide  the  ground  between  them,  and  what  one  gains  another 
must  lose.  To  speak  of  any  one  of  them  as  in  a  space  of  its  own 
independent  of  and  unrelated  to  the  space  occupied  by  the  others 
is  absurd.  I  am  looking  at  a  whole  composed  of  parts,  and  no 
part  is  independent  of  that  whole.  Each  thing  has  its  place ;  a 
thing  may  be  conceived  as  changing  its  place,  but  only  in  the 
sense  that  it  leaves  one  place  and  moves  into  another  which  is 
there  waiting  for  it.  However  individual  things  in  this  field  may 
move  about,  they  must  belong  to  the  field.  They  may  change,  but 
they  cannot  lose,  their  relations  to  all  other  things  in  it. 

Thus  this  whole  expanse  seen  from  my  window  may  be  regarded 
as,  in  a  sense,  a  single  thing.  It  is  like  the  desk  which  I  see  when 
I  turn  my  head.  I  could  not  see  a  desk,  in  any  intelligible  sense 
of  the  words,  if  one  part  of  it  were  in  one  space  and  another  in  a 
space  unrelated  to  the  former.  Similarly,  I  could  not  enjoy  a  view, 
if  my  body,  my  window,  the  several  roofs,  the  steeples,  the  river, 
and  the  distant  wood,  really  belonged  to  different  spaces  which  did 
not  take  their  places  as  parts  of  a  whole. 

Nor  do  I  conceive  the  space  occupied  by  the  things  I  have 
enumerated  to  be,  even  when  taken  as  a  whole,  an  independent 
and  unrelated  thing.  Beyond  those  woods  there  must  be  some- 

1  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Metaphysical  Exposition  of  the  Conception  of 
Space. 

2 Ibid.,  Metaphysical  Exposition  of  the  Conception  of  Time. 


212  The  External  World 

thing.  I  believe  that  there  are  other  objects  more  or  less  similar 
to  those  that  I  see ;  and  I  conceive  of  them  as  occupying  spaces 
related  to  the  spaces  occupied  by  the  things  that  I  see,  as  the  latter 
are  related  to  each  other.  When  my  thought  sweeps  a  wider  circle,  I 
am  ready  to  affirm  the  same  thing  of  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars. 
The  things  just  before  me  are  in  the  one  space-system  with  the 
remotest  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  form  a  part  of  a  perhaps 
boundless  universe  of  matter,  all  of  which  lies  in  the  one  space  — 
which  does  not,  of  course,  mean  that  all  material  things  are  in  the 
same  place,  but  merely  that  they  are  really  in  places,  i.e.  are  related 
to  each  other  as  one  part  of  this  desk  is  related  to  another. 

It  is  possible,  then,  to  regard  the  physical  universe  as,  in  a 
sense,  a  single  thing,  an  individual,  of  which  all  that  lies  before 
me  in  my  present  experience  is  but  a  very  small  fragment.  The 
distinction  between  what  is  individual  and  what  is  general,  or,  to 
use  the  old  terminology,  between  intuition  and  conception,  is  a 
commonplace  of  the  traditional  logic.  This  man  walking  in  the 
street  below  me  is  an  individual ;  he  is  a  thing  occupying  a  definite 
place  and  time  in  the  material  universe,  and  is  thus  a  constituent 
part  of  that  universe.  Man,  the  abstract  rational  animal  of  the 
text-books,  is  general,  not  individual ;  a  something  which  cannot 
be  placed  in  the  street  below  me,  or,  indeed,  anywhere  else  ;  a 
something  without  local  habitation,  which  cannot  be  regarded  as 
part  of  the  material  universe  at  all. 

I  shall  not  here  enter  into  the  immemorial  dispute  touching 
the  object  of  the  general  name.  It  is  enough  to  point  out  that  we 
do  constantly  distinguish  between  man  in  the  abstract  and  this  or 
that  particular  man.  Upon  this  distinction  Kant  falls  back  in  the 
extracts  above  quoted,  and  he  insists  that  space  is  an  intuition,  a 
something  given  as  an  individual  thing,  and  not  a  concept  or 
general  notion.  Space,  he  insists,  is  not  a  mere  name  for  all  individ- 
ual spaces,  as  man  is  a  name  for  all  individual  men.  It  includes 
them,  as  man  does  not  include  men.  It  is  a  single  object,  and 
"  a  representation  which  can  only  be  given  through  a  single  object 
is  an  intuition." 

That  Kant  is  quite  right  in  his  contention  that  space  is  not  a 
conception  in  the  sense  of  the  word  above  indicated,  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  We  do  conceive  of  the  whole  physical  universe 
as  in  one  space,  and  of  individual  things  as  occupying  portions 
of  that  space.  The  learned  and  the  unlearned  are  agreed  upon 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  213 

this  point.  It  would  be  mere  nonsense  to  speak  of  a  universe  of 
physical  things  riot  thus  related.  But  when  we  call  this  one 
space  an  intuition,  we  should  be  most  careful  to  make  clear  to 
ourselves  and  to  others  just  what  one  has  a  right  to  understand 
by  the  word. 

It  is  evident  that  even  what  I  claim  to  see  when  I  stand  at 
my  window  is  not  really  given  in  intuition  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word.  At  a  given  moment  I  am  intuitively  conscious  of  a 
certain  complex  of  color-sensations.  This  I  interpret  in  terms  of 
tactual  and  motor  sensations,  and  thus  perceive  a  certain  number 
of  tactual  things.  But  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  even  the 
visual  sensations  that  represent  the  things  seen  from  my  window 
are  not  all  intuitively  present  at  any  one  moment  with  that 
vividness  and  definiteness  that  admits  of  their  satisfactory  inter- 
pretation. The  eyes  must  move  about  and  gather  up  the  view  bit 
by  bit,  or  things  remain  virtually  unseen.  And  if  it  is  impossible 
for  all  the  visual  sensations  to  be  present  in  usable  form  at  a 
single  instant,  one  is  tempted  to  say  that  it  is  doubly  impossible 
for  the  full  meaning  of  these  sensations,  their  interpretation  in 
terms  of  touch  and  movement,  to  be  intuitively  present  to  con- 
sciousness at  any  one  time.  To  imagine  for  a  moment  that  I 
can  represent  to  myself  the  world  of  things  as  seen  from  my 
window,  just  as  completely  as  I  can  a  single  letter  written  down 
on  this  paper  before  me,  seems  almost  as  foolish  as  it  would  be  to 
suppose  that  I  can  really  pass  in  thought  over  the  distance  from 
my  window  to  the  sun,  and  hold  intuitively  before  the  imagina- 
tion the  amount  of  movement  which  would  be  necessary  to 
measure  it. 

The  world  as  it  lies  before  me  is,  then,  not  a  thing  directly 
given  in  intuition,  even  if  I  stop  at  the  world  of  common  knowl- 
edge, and  refuse  to  follow  the  scientist  into  the  unseen  region  in 
which  atoms  and  molecules  disport  themselves  in  a  space  in- 
finitely divisible.  What  is  intuitively  present  in  consciousness  is 
not  enough  to  constitute  such  a  world.  It  can  only  represent  it. 
It  is,  indeed,  the  symbol,  and  the  world  is  the  thing  symbolized. 
If  there  is  reason  to  believe  this  to  be  true  even  of  the  scrap  of  a 
world  seen  from  my  window,  there  is  the  more  reason  for  believing 
it  to  be  true  of  the  great  whole  of  which  this  is  a  part.  To  be- 
lieve that  all  this  is  intuitively  present  in  consciousness  is  simply 
absurd.  We  think  it ;  that  is  to  say,  there  is  intuitively  present 


The  External  World 

in  consciousness  that  which  represents  it ;  but  that  is  all  that  we 
can  say. 

The  same  reasoning  may  be  applied  to  time.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  maintain  that  time,  the  one  real  time  in  which  we  con- 
ceive all  the  changes  in  the  material  universe  to  take  place,  is  a 
concept  or  general  notion.  As  space  is  made  up  of  spaces,  so 
time  is  made  up  of  times.  The  hour  which  has  just  passed  is 
distinct  from  every  other  hour,  and  has  its  definite  place  in  the 
series.  The  changes  which  have  been  taking  place  during  that 
hour  are  not  changes  in  general,  but  have  their  fixed  position  in 
the  whole  series  of  changes  which  we  conceive  to  make  up  the 
life-history  of  the  universe.  The  conception  of  that  life-history 
as  a  whole  is  not  a  general  notion  applicable  indifferently  to  many 
things  ;  it  is  the  notion  of  a  single  life-history,  the  one  constituted 
by  these  individual  occurrences. 

Now  it  must  be  evident  to  any  one  who  will  reflect  upon  the 
matter  for  a  moment,  that  it  is  impossible  to  be  intuitively  con- 
scious, in  the  strict  sense  of  the  words,  of  the  whole  content  of 
any  considerable  portion  of  time.  I  seem  to  be  able  to  bring 
before  my  mind  with  some  detail  the  occurrences  of  the  past 
hour.  But  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  I  can  summon 
before  me  in  retrospect  every  single  view  in  this  panorama,  and  it 
would  be  preposterous  to  maintain  that  I  can  sum  them  all  up  and 
hold  them  before  my  mind  as  though  spread  on  one  canvas  and 
illuminated  by  a  single  flash.  I  can  think  of  the  occurrences  of 
the  past  hour,  and,  in  doing  so,  I  am,  of  course,  intuitively  con- 
scious of  something ;  but  that  something  is  a  mere  symbol,  and 
is  vastly  less  rich  in  content  than  that  which  it  represents.  It 
is  the  merest  skeleton,  the  barest  outline,  the  blur  of  blue  that 
represents  the  leafy  wood  with  its  numberless  effects  of  light  and 
shade. 

And  just  as  real  space  does  not  mean  to  me  merely  the  space 
over  which  I  can  sweep  my  hand,  the  space  which  at  least  seems 
to  be  intuitively  given,  but  means  rather  the  space  of  the  real 
world,  the  space  regarded  by  science  as  infinitely  divisible,  the 
space  of  atoms  and  molecules  and  their  imperceptible  motions  — 
so  real  time  does  not  mean  merely  the  duration  which  presents 
itself  as  such  intuitively  in  consciousness.  The  passing  second 
can  be  measured  in  the  laboratory  in  thousandths  of  a  second, 
and  occurrences  which  do  not  present  themselves  to  any  human 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  215 

consciousness  as  having  successive  parts  can  be  proved  to  have 
such  parts.  As  the  vibration  of  an  atom  takes  place  in  real  space, 
so  its  frequency  can  be  measured  in  real  time.  Neither  this  space 
nor  this  time  can  be  given  in  intuition.  They  are  known  only 
symbolically.  Thus,  in  order  to  prove  that  the  content  of  a 
given  period  of  time  cannot  be  given  in  intuition,  it  is  not  nec- 
essary to  choose  so  long  a  period  as  an  hour  or  a  day ;  a  minute 
or  a  second  will  serve  the  purpose.  On  the  absurdity  of  maintain- 
ing that  all  time — all  the  occurrences  in  the  whole  life-history 
of  the  world  —  can  be  given  immediately  in  intuition  it  is  surely 
unnecessary  for  me  to  dwell.  No  one  who  has  not  been  led  into 
error  by  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  "  intuition "  could  seriously 
support  such  a  doctrine. 

It  is,  then,  clear  that  what  is  given  in  intuition  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word  is  but  a  symbol  of  the  real  world  in  space  and 
time,  and  should  never  be  confounded  with  it.  We  conceive  the 
real  world  in  space  and  time  to  be  infinite  and  infinitely  divisible. 
What  is  given  in  intuition  is  not  either.  But  the  world  in  space 
and  time,  the  object  of  our  symbol,  is  an  individual,  not  an  abstrac- 
tion. That  is  to  say,  the  expression  "  the  world  "  does  not  mean 
to  us  that  which  many  individuals  have  in  common.  When  we 
use  it  we  refer  to  the  one  great  complex  made  up  of  all  the  real 
things  we  know  and  many  more  which  we  assume  to  exist.  -t 

Whether  one  will  elect  to  call  this  an  individual  or  not,  will 
depend  upon  his  taste  in  the  use  of  terms.  Certainly  it  is  not 
marked  out  from  other  individuals  by  constituting,  with  them,  a 
part  of  a  larger  whole  ;  for  there  is  supposed  to  be  no  larger 
whole.  It  is  not  sensible  to  ask  :  Where  is  all  space  ?  or :  When 
did  all  time  begin  ?  But  when  we  discuss  the  world,  we  treat  it 
as  an  individual  in  that  we  concern  ourselves  with  the  parts  which 
constitute  it.  We  act  as  though  we  were  dealing  with  a  "  thing," 
not  with  a  class  of  things,  and,  to  use  the  terminology  of  the 
old  logic,  our  divison  is  "  physical "  or  "  metaphysical,"  never 
"logical."  Since  space  and  time  are  in  this  sense  individual, 
Kant  applied  to  them  the  term  "intuition."  There  can  be  no 
great  harm  in  using  the  term  thus,  provided  we  are  careful  not 
to  be  misled  by  it.  Of  course  there  is  always  a  danger  in  using 
the  .same  word  in  two  or  three  different  senses,  for  it  is  so  fatally 
easy  to  slip  insensibly  from  the  one  to  the  other.  The  danger  is 
the  greater  when,  as  in  the  present  instance,  the  several  senses  are 


216  The  External  World 

rather  closely  related.  That  Kant  did  not  keep  the  different  uses 
of  the  word  distinct  is  sufficiently  evident. 

It  has  probably  been  noticed  that,  in  the  foregoing,  I  have  passed 
from  space  and  time  to  the  things  in  space  and  time  and  vice 
versa,  as  though  it  mattered  little  of  which  I  was  speaking.  And 
yet  my  right  to  pass  in  this  way  from  the  one  to  the  other  would 
be  disputed  by  many.  As  we  have  seen,  Kant  maintains  that 
infinite  space  and  time  are  given  in  intuition,  but  finds  it  neces- 
sary at  the  same  time  to  offer  some  sort  of  proof  of  the  infinity 
of  their  content.  This  means  that  we  immediately  perceive  that 
space  and  time  are  infinite,  but  must  discover  some  evidence  that 
the  world  is  infinite,  has  existed  endlessly,  and  will  endlessly 
exist. 

The  notion  that  our  knowledge  of  space  and  time  is  thus  inde- 
pendent of  our  knowledge  of  things  is  a  venerable  error,  and  it 
would  be  interesting  to  trace  its  history.  More  than  two  thou- 
sand years  ago  Melissus  of  Samos  argued  that  Being  must  be 
infinite,  on  the  ground  that  if  it  be  finite,  it  must  be  limited  by 
the  void,  which  is  not  an  existing  thing,  and,  hence,  is  incapable 
of  limiting  anything.  In  this  argument  he  both  denies  existence 
to  empty  space,  since  he  cannot  regard  it  as  a  thing,  and  he  as- 
sumes that  it  is  infinite,  or  how  could  he  affirm  that  limited  Being 
must  lie  in  the  void?  His  argument  is  identical  with  that  of 
Kant,  and  owes  its  existence  to  the  same  impulse  that  moved  the 
German  thinker. 

We  can  sometimes  detect  the  presence  of  this  impulse  even  in 
those  who  make  a  show  of  denying  the  infinity  of  space  or  time. 
For  example,  St.  Augustine  supposes  the  question  to  be  raised : 
"  What  was  God  doing  before  he  made  heaven  and  earth  ?  "  To 
this  question  he  magnanimously  decides  not  to  return  the  evasive 
answer :  "  Making  hells  for  those  who  pry  into  mysteries ! " 
He  will  answer  it  seriously ;  and  he  does  so  by  taking  the  posi- 
tion that,  before  heaven  and  earth  were  created,  time  did  not 
exist.  It  is,  hence,  foolish  to  ask  what  was  then  taking  place, 
for  there  was  no  "  then."  1  But  it  is  easy  for  the  reader  to  detect 
that  he  does  really  recognize  a  "  then,"  and  pieces  out  the  defi- 
ciencies of  time  with  the  aid  of  "eternity."  Like  Melissus,  like 
Kant,  like  Hamilton,  like  Spencer,  like  a  host  of  others,  he  as- 
sumes an  infinite  as  self-evident ;  and  in  this  he  is  actuated  by 
i  "  Confessions,"  Book  XI,  Ciiapters  12  and  13. 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  217 

the  same  motive  that  inclines  us  all  to  assent  to  the  statement 
that  space  and  time  are  infinite,  even  when  we  regard  it  as  at 
least  uncertain  whether  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  world 
that  lies  in  space  and  time. 

Here  it  may  be  objected  that  in  the  very  use  of  the  contrasted 
expressions  "  space  and  time  "  and  "  the  world  that  lies  in  space 
and  time "  —  expressions  in  common  use  and  which  seem  emi- 
nently natural  —  I  am  suggesting  to  the  mind  that  the  frame  and 
its  content  are  in  some  sense  independent  things  and  may  con- 
ceivably be  treated  independently.  If  space  is  one  thing,  and 
the  real  world  another,  why  may  we  not  know  space  to  be  infinite 
whether  we  know  the  real  world  to  be  so  or  not?  If  time  is  one 
thing,  and  the  series  of  real  changes  which  make  up  the  life- 
history  of  the  universe  is  another,  why  may  we  not  know  that 
time  is  infinite  even  when  we  are  ignorant  of  the  extent  of  the 
life-history  which  we  conceive  as  lying  in  it? 

But  this  view  of  space  and  time  makes  them  something  very 
like  "things,"  and  upon  reflection  we  find  that  we  are  not  really 
willing  to  accord  to  empty  space  and  time  the  dignity  of  being 
"  things  "  in  any  unequivocal  sense  of  that  word.  Democritus  did, 
it  is  true,  wax  very  bold,  and  maintain  that  "  thing  does  not  more 
really  exist  than  no-thing,"  but  few  have  had  the  courage  to 
take  this  position,  with  all  that  it  seems  to  imply.  Space  and 
time  have,  as  we  have  seen,  inconsistently  been  treated  as  things 
and  yet  not  things,  shades  that  must  remain  inarticulate  until 
some  reality  has  been  put  into  them  by  the  draught  of  blood 
which  put  new  life  into  the  friends  of  Ulysses. 

We  may,  then,  freely  admit  that  men  seem  naturally  inclined 
to  believe  that  they  have  a  knowledge  of  space  and  time  inde- 
pendently of  their  experience  of  the  real  world,  and  we  may  as 
freely  admit  that  expressions  in  common  use  seem  to  suggest 
that  space  and  time  are  independent  quasi-entities.  But  we 
should,  at  the  same  time,  point  to  the  incoherencies  and  absurdi- 
ties which  arise  when  one  embraces  such  beliefs  or  is  misled  by 
such  suggestions.  We  should  point  out  how  such  misconcep- 
tions come  to  exist.  We  should  show  why  it  is  that  men  wel- 
come rather  hospitably  the  statement  that  we  intuitively  know 
space  and  time  to  be  infinite,  and  shake  their  heads  over  the 
corresponding  statement  that  we  know  the  world  to  be  limitless 
and  eternal.  We  can  perfectly  well  explain  this  tendency  with- 


218  The  External  World 

out  having  recourse  to  ambiguous  uses  of  the  word  "intuition,"  or 
advancing  pretended  arguments  which  shamelessly  assume  in 
the  premise  what  is  to  be  triumphantly  exhibited  in  the  conclusion. 

As  I  pass  my  finger  across  the  grille  of  carved  wood  that  com- 
poses the  back  of  my  oaken  chair,  I  have  what  I  recognize  as  suc- 
cessive experiences  of  filled  space  and  empty  space.  The  bits  of 
wood  are  "  things,"  and  they  seem  to  be  separated  by  empty  spaces. 
Reflection  reveals  that  the  "  things  "  of  which  I  am  thus  conscious 
are  complexes  of  tactual  sensations  combined  with,  or  measured 
in  terms  of,  motor  sensations,  while  the  empty  spaces  are  given 
to  consciousness  as  certain  quantities  of  motor  sensation  taken 
alone. 

This  rather  primitive  experience  of  things  separated  by  spaces 
lies  at  the  foundation  of,  and  makes  possible,  the  more  elaborate 
conception  of  larger  objects  separated  by  larger  spaces  —  of  a 
universe  consisting  of  the  earth,  the  planets,  the  sun,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  innumerable  company  of  heaven,  which  we  do  not  con- 
ceive to  fill  space  continuously,  but  to  swim  in  the  void  at  distances 
from  each  other  which  it  wearies  the  imagination  to  strive  to  grasp 
even  through  the  symbol.  And  when  we  turn  our  thought  from 
the  space  of  common  life  to  the  space  of  science,  the  fine-spun 
space  of  atoms  and  molecules,  we  carry  over  to  it  the  same  ex- 
perience. We  conceive  that  this  seemingly  continuous  bit  of 
paper  is  not  really  continuous,  but  consists  of  a  swarm  of  atoms 
in  rapid  motion  and  separated  from  one  another  by  distances  great 
in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  atoms  themselves.  Whether  we 
speak  of  worlds  or  whether  we  speak  of  atoms,  the  distinction 
between  filled  space  and  empty  space  remains  to  us  the  same.  It 
is  the  distinction  between  sensations  of  movement  which  measure 
sensations  of  touch,  and  sensations  of  movement  which  do  not 
measure  sensations  of  touch,  but  serve  to  measure  the  relations 
between  groups  of  touch  sensations. 

Thus  the  real  world  as  it  seems  to  present  itself  to  us  is  a  vast 
complex  of  tactual  things  standing  to  each  other  in  relations  which 
are  measured  in  terms  of  sensations  of  movement.  It  is,  in  other 
words,  a  world  of  things  separated  by  distances.  But  it  is  one 
thing  to  say  that  the  world  seems  to  us  to  present  this  contrast  of 
filled  and  empty  spaces,  and  quite  another  to  say  that  any  given 
spaces  are  really  empty.  We  have  in  our  everyday  experience 
abundant  evidence  of  the  fact  that  spaces  which  seem  empty  at 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  219 

one  moment  may  at  the  next,  as  when  the  sunbeam  pierces  the 
blind  at  the  window,  be  observed  to  be  not  empty  at  all.  It  is 
clearly  not  for  the  metaphysician,  by  juggling  with  apriorisms,  to 
establish  the  non-existence  of  a  vacuum  in  nature,  but  for  the 
scientist,  by  the  use  of  the  approved  inductive-deductive  method, 
to  prove  or  disprove  the  existence  of  matter  in  what  seems  to 
present  itself  as  void  space.  Whether  there  are  empty  spaces 
between  the  real  things  which  constitute  the  world,  or  whether 
these  spaces  are  to  be  regarded  as  filled  with  something  —  with 
ether  or  what  not  —  is  something  to  be  proved  in  somewhat  the 
same  way  as  it  is  sought  to  prove  that  there  are  atoms  and 
molecules. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  perfectly  possible  to  conceive  that  between 
the  real  things  which  constitute  the  world  there  are  void  spaces, 
and  it  is  also  possible  to  conceive  that  the  universe  of  matter  is 
limited  in  extent  and  is  surrounded  by  empty  space.  It  is  neces- 
sary, however,  to  understand  clearly  what  one  means  by  such 
statements,  and  to  avoid  giving  them  an  interpretation  which  is 
plainly  erroneous. 

Let  us  first  consider  the  statement  that  it  is  possible  to  conceive 
of  things  as  separated  by  void  spaces.  The  question  will  at  once 
be  raised  :  Do  not  these  void  spaces  really  exist  ?  and  must  they 
not,  then,  be  something  ?  This  is  the  old  problem  that  perplexed 
the  Eleatics. 

To  the  question  whether  the  void  spaces  are  real,  we  may  an- 
swer :  Yes,  if  we  mean  by  this  only  that  things  really  stand  to 
each  other  in  such  and  such  relations ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  they 
are  at  such  and  such  distances  from  one  another.  No,  if  we  mean 
that  the  relation  is  to  be  turned  into  a  real  thing  that  is  supposed 
to  remain  when  the  things  between  which  it  obtains  are  taken 
away.  The  real  world  which  we  build  up  out  of  our  experiences 
is  a  world  of  things  of  a  certain  kind  ;  it  is  a  world  of  extended 
things  separated  by  distances,  and  the  things  influence  each  other 
in  definite  ways  which  cannot  be  described  if  the  relations  of  the 
things  —  their  distances  and  directions  —  be  left  out  of  account. 
It  is  one  thing  to  recognize  the  relations  between  things  as  real, 
and  it  is  quite  another  to  turn  those  relations  into  things  of  an 
unreal  and  equivocal  sort.  It  is  one  thing  to  recognize  that  things 
are  at  a  distance  from  each  other,  and  another  to  turn  the  distance 
itself  into  the  ghost  of  a  thing. 


220  The  External  World 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  when  we  speak  of  space,  we  mean 
more  than  the  actual  system  of  relations  which  obtains  between 
extended  things.  I  answer,  we  undoubtedly  do ;  we  mean,  not 
merely  the  actual  system  of  relations,  but  the  system  of  all  theo- 
retically possible  relations  as  well.  The  actual  relations  of  things 
are  constantly  changing,  and  the  relations  which  happen  to  exist 
at  any  moment  may  be  regarded  as  merely  representative  of  an 
indefinite  number  of  other  relations  which  might  just  as  well  have 
been  actual.  We  have  seen  that  real  things  are  never  given  in  a 
single  intuition,  and  that  what  may  be  thus  given  can,  at  best,  be 
regarded  as  merely  representative  of  an  indefinite  series  of  possi- 
ble experiences  which  in  their  totality  express  the  nature  of  the 
thing.  In  the  same  way  we  may  say  that  real  space,  which  is 
the  whole  system  of  relations  of  a  certain  kind  between  real 
things,  cannot  be  the  object  of  a  single  intuition.  By  real  space 
we  never  mean  only  this  particular  distance  given  in  this  particu- 
lar experience.  We  mean  all  the  actual  and  theoretically  possible 
space-relations  of  real  things  in  the  real  world. 

About  time  one  may  reason  in  precisely  the  same  way.  Space 
and  time  are,  thus,  abstractions.  They  are  the  plan  of  the  real 
world  with  its  actual  and  possible  changes.  But  this  plan  is  not  a 
something  of  which  we  have  a  knowledge  independent  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  world.  This  ought,  I  think,  to  be  clear  to  any 
one  who  has  followed  the  reasonings  of  the  chapter  on  the 
Berkeleian  Doctrine  of  Space.  We  certainly  do  riot  perceive 
immediately  that  space  and  time  are  infinitely  divisible.  Sub- 
division speedily  appears  to  result  in  the  simple  in  each  case. 
Why,  then,  do  we  assume  that  they  are  thus  divisible  ?  No  con- 
ceivable reason  can  be  given  save  that,  in  our  experience  of  the 
world,  such  a  system  of  substitutions  obtains  —  a  s}Tstem  within 
which  the  seemingly  indivisible  intuitive  experience  takes  its  place 
as  the  representative  of  experiences  that  are  divisible,  and,  magni- 
fying its  function,  sinks  into  individual  insignificance.  The  plan 
stands  out ;  the  particular  experience  is  lost  sight  of  so  completely 
that  many  able  writers  are  capable  of  wholly  misconceiving  its 
nature.  The  plan  is,  then,  abstracted  from  our  experience  of  the 
world  of  things ;  but  when  we  have  the  plan  we  can  work  more 
or  less  independently  of  the  experiences  from  which  it  lias  been 
abstracted,  and  we  can  satisfy  ourselves,  by  verifying  our  results 
from  time  to  time,  that  we  are  not  wandering  in  the  region  of 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  221 

dreams,  but  are  doing  something  that  has  a  meaning  within  the 
realm  of  nature.  But  what  meaning  could  a  millionth  of  a  milli- 
metre or  a  thousandth  of  a  second  have  to  one  who  had  never 
had  the  complex  series  of  experiences  which  reveals  real  things 
and  real  events?  They  are  not  given  in  any  experience  except 
symbolically,  and  the  only  thing  that  can  give  significance  to 
our  symbol  is  the  series  of  experiences  in  which  a  real  world  is 
revealed. 

Hence,  to  the  question  whether  a  vacuum  can  be  conceived  to 
exist  within  the  world,  I  answer  :  Undoubtedly  it  can.  But  please 
do  not  substitute  for  the  meaning  :  "  exist  as  a  vacuum,"  the  very 
different  meaning:  "exist  as  some  kind  of  a  thing."  It  is  easy  to 
slip  from  the  one  meaning  into  the  other,  and  philosophers  have 
done  it  again  and  again.  Space  and  time  are  the  plan  of  the 
world-system.  They  really  exist  in  the  only  sense  in  which  such 
things  can  exist,  i.e.  they  really  are  the  plan  of  the  system. 
The  difficulties  which  seem  to  present  themselves  when  men 
inquire  whether  they  have  real  existence  arise  out  of  the  fact  that 
this  truth  is  not  clearly  grasped. 

Kant  thought  it  possible  to  conceive  of  a  vacuum  within  the 
world,  but  impossible  to  conceive  of  the  world  as  lying  in  void 
space  and  time.  "Space  filled  or  void,"  he  writes,  "may  be  lim- 
ited by  phenomena  but  phenomena  cannot  be  limited  by  an 
empty  space  without  them." 1  One  may,  of  course,  object  to 
this  that  if  void  space  is  enough  of  a  thing  to  have  a  real 
existence  within  the  world,  it  ought  to  be  enough  of  a  thing 
to  have  a  real  existence  beyond  its  limits.  But  we  do  Kant  an 
injustice  if  we  fail  to  recognize  that  at  least  a  seemingly  plausible 
reason  may  be  given  for  the  invidious  distinction  which  he  draws. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  real  world  seems  to  consist  of  tactual 
things  separated  by  distances.  The  reality  of  the  distances,  their 
existence  as  actual  aspects  of  being,  appears  to  be  guaranteed  by 
the  fact  that  they  are  the  actual  distances  beween  real  things. 
Now,  if  the  universe  be  limited,  can  we  say  that  any  distances  be- 
yond its  limits  are  in  the  same  sense  actual  ?  The  earth  and  the 
sun  are,  at  a  given  moment,  a  given  distance  apart.  Whether 
they  be  separated  by  filled  space  or  void  space,  does  not  affect  the 
question  of  the  reality  of  this  relation.  But  can  we  say  that  some 
cosmic  body  on  the  confines  (if  there  be  such)  of  the  universe  of 
1  '•  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  First  Antinomy,  Observations  on  the  Antithesis. 


222  The  External  World 

matter  stands  in  a  similar  relation  to  a  material  thing  beyond  that 
universe  ?  Manifestly  not.  Can,  then,  anything  whatever  beyond 
the  universe  of  matter  be  regarded  as  really  existent  ?  Can  it  be 
an  "  aspect "  of  that  universe  ?  The  distances  which  we  may,  then, 
conceive  to  lie  beyond  the  ramparts  of  the  world  are  not  real  dis- 
tances. They  are  not  real  relations  between  real  things.1 

This  argument  is  not,  I  think,  without  some  plausibility,  but 
its  weakness  is  sufficiently  evident.  I  have  said  that  when  we 
talk  of  space  we  do  not  mean  by  it  merely  the  existing  relations 
of  distance  and  direction  in  which  things  stand  to  each  other  at  any 
given  time.  We  include  all  possible  relations  as  well.  But  it  is 
theoretically  possible  that  a  real  thing  should  exist  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  finite  universe  that  I  have  assumed,  and  another  be- 
yond that  one,  etc.  Hence,  there  can  be  no  objection  to  saying, 
even  in  the  absence  of  real  things,  that  there  is  space  beyond. 
We  have  already  thought  this  in  thinking  a  "  beyond  "  at  all. 

It  is  with  space-relations  as  it  is  with  numbers.  If  only  50  real 
things  existed  in  the  universe,  we  could  still  say  with  truth  that 
50  +  50  =  100.  This  does  not  mean  that  100  things  exist,  nor  does 
it  mean  that  numbers  are  shadowy  existences  which  are  indepen- 
dent of  things,  and  can  be  affirmed  to  be,  before  we  know  anything 
about  things.  It  only  means  that  our  number-system  admits  of 
such  and  such  a  legitimate  extension,  and  that,  hence,  if  there  are 
50  things  and  50  things,  there  must  be  100  things.  It  does  not 
matter  one  whit  to  the  arithmetician  whether  there  actually  exist 
100  things  or  not.  He  is,  indeed,  ultimately  concerned  with 
things,  or  his  number-system  would  be  a  mere  play  of  fancy,  and 
would  have  no  bearing  upon  reality  ;  but  he  is  only  indirectly  con- 
cerned with  things,  and  he  may  in  much  of  his  work  leave  them 
out  of  account. 

Thus,  when  men  declare  space  to  be  infinite,  as  they  are  usually 
very  ready  to  do,  they  are  not  affirming  an  existence  but  are  recog- 
nizing a  possibility.  They  are  recognizing  the  fact  that  there  is 
no  theoretical  limit  to  their  freedom  of  imagining  extensions  to 
a  supposed  limited  universe.  They  are  extending  their  space- 
system  as  his  number-system  is  extended  by  the  arithmetician. 

That  this  is  what  they  mean  when  they  pronounce  space  to  be 
infinite  is  sufficiently  clear  from  the  repugnance  which  they  exhibit 
at  the  thought  of  granting  to  space  such  an  existence  as  they  grant 
1Cf.  op.  cit.,  First  Antinomy,  Proof  of  the  Antithesis. 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  223 

to  things  in  space.  If  they  do  not  realize  clearly  what  they  really 
mean  by  space,  they  are  in  danger,  as  we  have  seen,  of  making  it  a 
quasi-thing,  a  thing  and  yet  not  a  thing,  a  thing  too  real  to  be 
banished  and  yet  not  real  enough  to  be  capable  of  standing  alone, 
an  insistent  but  feeble-kneed  spectre.  But  those  who  wander 
cheerfully  thus  far  upon  the  path  of  error,  are  unwilling  to  go  a 
little  further  and  make  space  consistently  a  thing.  Time  and 
number,  about  which  one  may  reason  in  the  same  way,  are  still  less 
in  danger  of  being  "  reified,"  for  they  seem  to  be  instinctively  felt 
to  be  less  robust  and  independent.1  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  the 
fact  that  men  discern  dimly,  even  when  they  are  groping  their 
way  in  rather  a  heavy  fog,  that,  in  dealing  with  space  and  time, 
they  are  not  really  dealing  with  things.  It  is  just  because  they  do 
perceive  this  that  they  are  willing  to  declare  space  and  time  infinite, 
when  they  know  perfectly  well  that  space  and  time  as  infinite  do 
not  fall  within  their  experience  at  all,  that  they  are  not  conscious 
of  infinite  space  and  time. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  space  and  time,  and  such  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  statement  that  they  are  infinite,  there  can  be  no 
serious  objection  to  making  that  statement,  if  it  be  properly  under- 
stood. Indeed,  it  would  seem  odd  to  deny  the  statement,  for  it 
Avould  be  a  virtual  denial  of  an  undoubted  truth.  But  there 
must  be  no  misconception.  Space,  for  example,  must  not  be 
turned  into  a  thing  or  even  into  half-a-thing.  Possible  relations 
must  not  be  made  actual,  arid  then  things  arbitrarily  assumed  to 
exist  in  order  that  they  may  stand  in  all  these  possible  relations 
and  bolster  up  their  dubious  being.  It  is  palpably  absurd  first  to 
assume  unlimited  ivy  and  then  to  assume  unlimited  oak  upon  which 
to  wreathe  it.  It  will  not  do  to  extort  from  a  mere  misconception 
such  significant  statements  of  fact  as  that  there  can  exist  no 
vacuum  within  the  world-system,  and  no  outer  limit  to  the  same 
system.  These  are  dreams,  not  serious  arguments,  and  they  tend 
to  bring  metaphysics  into  disrepute  with  men  of  scientific  mind. 

I  hope  it  is  clear  from  the  foregoing  that  the  use  of  the  con- 
trasted expressions  "  space  and  time  "  and  "  the  world  in  space 
and  time,"  does  not  imply  that  the  world  is  one  thing,  and  space 

1  It  has  been  iny  experience  that  the  average  undergraduate,  in  his  primitive 
simplicity,  is  not  loth  to  regard  space  as  something  very  like  a  "thing"  ;  he  is 
much  slower  to  admit  the  same  of  time,  and  he  is  usually  ready  to  deny  flatly  that 
it  can  be  true  of  number.  I  suppose  that  my  classes  are  not  peculiar  in  this  matter. 


224  The  External  World 

and  time  independent  entities  of  some  sort.  The  real  world  in 
space  and  time  is  a  vast  complex  of  tactual  things  standing  to 
each  other  in  certain  relations  of  distance  and  direction,  and  pass- 
ing through  a  series  of  changes.  The  plan  or  system  of  its  actual 
and  theoretically  possible  relations  and  changes  is  what  we  mean 
by  space  and  time.  In  this  plan  we  have  the  "  form  "  of  the  real 
world.  And  just  as  the  real  world  is  not  given  in  any  single 
intuition,  but  is  a  construct  of  great  complexity,  and  implies 
many  intuitive  experiences  built  into  a  system,  so  its  "  form  "  is 
not  the  "  form  "  of  any  single  intuition,  but  the  plan  of  the  whole 
system  of  experiences  in  which  the  real  world  is  revealed.  Thus 
it  is  because  the  real  world  is  what  it  is  that  space  and  time  are 
what  they  are.  They  are  abstractions  from  the  real  world,  iso- 
lated aspects  of  it,  and  are  in  no  sense  known  independently. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  neither  space,  time,  nor  the  world  of 
real  things,  can  be  regarded  as  given  in  intuition  in  the  first  and 
strict  sense  of  the  word ;  but  all  three  may  be  regarded  as  intui- 
tions in  the  third  sense  —  intuitions  as  contrasted  with  concep- 
tions, the  individual  as  contrasted  with  the  general.  But  they 
are  not  independent  intuitions,  for  the  first  two  are  abstracted 
from  the  last ;  and  the  real  significance  of  much  that  Kant  tells 
us  touching  the  nature  of  space  and  time  becomes  apparent  only 
when  this  is  clearly  apprehended. 

Perhaps  I  should  touch  briefly  upon  one  more  point  before 
closing  this  discussion.  It  is  possible  that  the  objection  may  be 
urged  that,  after  all,  when  we  try  to  conceive  empty  space,  we  do 
not  really  conceive  empty  space ;  that,  when  we  think  we  are  deal- 
ing with  the  void,  we  are  really  dealing  with  a  sensation-content. 
Have  we  not  seen  that  our  initial  experience  of  empty  space  is  an 
experience  of  sensations  of  movement  uncombined  with  sensations 
of  touch  ?  Are  not  these  sensations  something  ?  And  if  so,  can 
we  say  that  space,  as  we  conceive  it,  is  not  a  thing  in  any  sense  ? 

Now,  those  who  are  inclined  to  regard  the  distinction  between 
"  form  "  and  "  matter  "  as  ultimate  would  probably  maintain  that, 
although  we  gain  our  first  experience  of  empty  space  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  movement-sensations,  and  although  every  attempt 
to  bring  before  the  mind  any  space  necessitates  the  imagining  or 
feeling  of  some  quantity  of  such  sensations,  yet  the  consciousness 
of  space  is  not  identical  with  the  consciousness  of  this  content 
simply.  In  this  content  they  would  distinguish  between  "matter" 


The  Real  World  in  Space  and  Time  225 

and  "form,"  between  the  sensational  elements  themselves  and 
their  arrangement,  maintaining  that  the  properly  spatial  element 
in  the  experience  is  the  latter,  and  that  it  is  possible  to  fix  the 
attention  upon  this  to  the  temporary  exclusion  or  partial  suppres- 
sion of  the  former.  This  element,  they  would  claim,  is  not  a  con- 
tent in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  though  it  is  undoubtedly 
an  element  in  consciousness.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  do 
not  regard  the  distinction  between  "form"  and  "matter"  as  ulti- 
mate, would  probably  admit  that  empty  space  presents  itself  in 
our  experience  as  simply  movement-sensations  uncombined  with 
tactual  sensations. 

But  whether  one  embrace  the  one  position  or  the  other,  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  one  is  forced  to  admit  that  we  cannot 
conceive  empty  space.  Empty  space  is  not  synonymous  with 
"  nothing  at  all " ;  it  is  empty  space,  and  is  quite  distinguishable 
from  empty  time.  The  conception  "thing"  (when  the  word 
signifies  real  things  in  a  real  world)  and  the  conception  "  nothing 
at  all "  do  not  exhaust  all  possibilities  between  them.  What  is 
meant  by  real  things  I  have  tried  to  show  in  the  foregoing,  and  I 
have  strenuously  insisted  that  space  and  time  must  not  be  turned 
into  such  things.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  their  real  exist- 
ence—  not  as  things,  but  as  space  and  time  —  must  be  denied. 
By  the  distance  between  two  things  we  do  not  mean  a  third  thing ; 
but  neither  do  we  mean  nothing  at  all.  The  apparent  difficulty 
clearly  lies  in  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  thing,  and  the  facility 
with  which  one  may  pass  from  the  broader  sense  in  which  it  is 
used  to  the  narrower.  In  its  narrower  sense  we  contrast  things 
and  the  relations  between  things;  we  are  concerned  with  the  mate- 
rial world  and  its  aspects.  In  its  broader  sense  we  contrast  thing 
with  nothing,  and  we,  of  course,  see  that  no  element  in  conscious- 
ness can  be  regarded  as  nothing  at  all.  It  is  manifestly  illegiti- 
mate to  slip  in  any  discussion  from  the  one  meaning  of  the  word 
into  the  other.  It  is  absurd  to  argue  that,  because  something  is 
in  consciousness  when  we  think  of  empty  space,  therefore  we  can- 
not really  be  thinking  of  empty  space,  but  must  be  thinking  of  a 
thing.  In  the  foregoing  discussions,  when  it  was  denied  that 
space  and  time  could  be  regarded  as  things  in  any  sense,  reference 
was  had,  of  course,  only  to  the  narrower  meaning  of  the  word. 
This  is  the  only  meaning  in  which  it  is  worth  while  to  raise  the 
question. 
Q 


CHAPTER  XV 


THE  analyses  of  the  psychologist  and  of  the  metaphysician 
reveal  to  us  that  the  real  world  in  space  and  time  is  an  orderly 
system  of  things  given  in  terms  of  touch  and  movement  sensa- 
tions. This  is  the  world  of  matter  in  motion  which  the  science  of 
mechanics  attempts  to  describe  to  us.  It  is  quite  possible  to  treat 
of  it  intelligently  without  being  either  psychologist  or  metaphysi- 
cian, for  one  may  confine  oneself  to  certain  aspects  of  it  without 
attempting  to  discuss  certain  others. 

When  a  physicist  loosely  describes  matter  as  "  everything  that 
one  can  touch,"  and  then  busies  himself  with  the  changes  that  take 
place  in  the  world  of  matter,  ignoring  all  epistemological  problems, 
he  confines  himself  to  a  definite  field  of  investigation,  and  the  results 
he  obtains  within  that  field  need  not  be  at  all  vitiated  by  the  fact 
that  he  neither  raises  nor  suggests  certain  other  questions  with 
which  other  men  busy  themselves.  Without  leaving  the  plane  of 
the  common  understanding,  he  may  ask  himself  whether  he  is  to 
look  upon  the  material  world  as  through  and  through  a  mechanism, 
or  whether  he  must  abandon  this  conception  as  being  unsatisfac- 
tory. He  has  a  right  to  expect  that  the  arguments  pro  and  con 
will  be  such  as  to  appeal  to  men  of  intelligence  who  are  not  de- 
voted adherents  of  this  or  that  metaphysical  theory. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  a  series  of  eminent  names  may 
be  cited  as  favoring  the  opposite  doctrine,  the  statement  does  not 
appear  unwarranted  that  the  man  of  science,  as  such,  is  coming  to 
incline  more  and  more  to  the  view  that  the  changes  which  take 
place  in  the  world  of  matter  form  an  unbroken  series  and  are  all 
explicable  according  to  mechanical  laws. 

It  ought  to  be  frankly  admitted  by  every  one  that  the  material 
world  is  not  known  to  be  such  a  system.  We  may,  indeed,  con- 
ceive it  to  have  swept  through  an  unbroken  series  of  changes, 
from  the  cosmic  mist  in  which  our  ignorance  looks  for  its  begin- 

226 


The  World  as  Mechanism  227 

nings,  to  the  organized  whole  in  which  vegetable  and  animal 
bodies  play  their  part;  but,  even  as  we  call  before  us  the  vision, 
we  realize  that  it  is  revealed  only  to  the  eye  of  faith,  and  is  but 
dimly  discerned  through  the  obscurity  which  enshrouds  it.  Even 
if  we  leave  out  of  view  the  difficulties  connected  with  the  struc- 
ture of  the  atom  and  the  nature  of  the  ether,  we  are  forced  to 
admit  that  scarce  so  much  as  a  beginning  has  been  made  in  the 
direction  of  a  mechanical  explanation  of  the  combination  of  atoms 
into  molecules  and  the  origin  of  the  kinds  of  matter  of  which, 
as  the  chemist  informs  us,  our  world  is  made  up.  Given,  too, 
the  chemical  elements  and  the  laws  of  their  combination  as  empiri- 
cally known  to  the  chemist,  we  still  search  in  vain  for  an  explana- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  living  organisms,  and  fail  to  account  for 
their  appearance  upon  this  planet.  Chemistry,  physics,  biology  — 
these  are  as  yet  relatively  independent  realms,  and  it  remains  for 
a  perhaps  far  distant  future  to  give  them  all  a  solid  basis  in 
mechanics  and  thus  to  unite  our  present  fragmentary  glimpses 
into  the  nature  of  things  into  a  reasonable  and  comprehensive 
whole.  We  have  a  collection  of  sciences  whose  relations  to  each 
other  are  not  clearly  seen.  We  have  not  yet  a  science  which  can 
string  on  a  single  thread  the  beads  that  we  have  with  such  labor 
collected  together. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  admit  our  present  ignorance,  and  it  is 
quite  another  to  maintain  that  it  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  ulti- 
mate and  irremovable.  The  steady  growth  of  science  encourages 
those  who  are  imbued  with  the  scientific  spirit  to  hope  that,  in  our 
knowledge  of  nature,  discontinuity  will  gradually  give  place  to 
continuity,  and  that  there  will  become  more  and  more  clear  before 
our  eyes  an  orderly  mechanical  system,  the  successive  stages  in  the 
evolution  of  which  will  not  have  to  be  accepted  as  inexplicable 
fact,  but  will  be  seen  to  be  the  appropriate  steps  in  a  series  of 
changes,  the  inevitable  succession  of  which  we  may  infer  with  con- 
fidence, and  which  we  are  unable  to  comprehend  only  where  we  are 
still  hampered  by  our  ignorance. 

That  this  faith  in  the  mechanism  of  nature  is  justified  cannot 
be  proved  by  the  philosopher  in  his  closet.  It  can  be  proved  only 
by  the  actual  extension  of  our  knowledge  of  nature,  and  until  this 
has  taken  place,  the  doctrine  can  be  no  more  than  a  working  hy- 
pothesis. It  is,  however,  sometimes  urged  that  it  should  not  be 
held  even  as  a  working  hypothesis,  and  various  considerations  are 


228  The  External  World 

brought  forward  to  prove  that  the  doctrine  is  inherently  absurd. 
Upon  certain  of  these  I  shall  dwell  briefly  in  what  follows. 

1.  It  has  recently  been  ingeniously  argued l  that  the  funda- 
mental concepts  of  the  science  of  mechanics  are  found,  when  care- 
fully examined,  to  be  self-contradictory  and  absurd.  The  detailed 
discussion  of  Dr.  Ward's  strictures  may  safely  be  left  to  the 
student  of  natural  science.  But  it  is  not  out  of  place  for  me  to 
point  out  here  that  the  criticism  as  a  whole  appears  to  arise  out  of 
a  misconception  of  the  foundation  upon  which  the  science  of  me- 
chanics rests. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  science  of  mechanics,  like 
other  sciences,  has  its  foundation  in  our  common  experience ;  that 
it  is  merely  the  systematization,  refinement,  and  extension  of  our 
ordinary  knowledge  of  things  and  their  motions. 

The  savage,  who  uses  a  stick  to  pry  a  stone  out  of  its  setting, 
the  boy  who  throws  a  bit  of  coal  at  a  cat,  even  these  have  made  a 
beginning  in  the  knowledge  of  a  mechanical  system  of  things. 
That  no  little  advance  has  been  made  from  such  a  beginning  is 
patent  to  any  one  familiar  with  contemporary  science.  The  notion 
of  mechanism  is  a  perfectly  familiar  one,  and  to  it  we  constantly 
turn  for  an  explanation  of  changes  which  we  perceive  to  be  taking 
place  in  the  world  about  us.  Whatever  may  become  of  the  doc- 
trine of  atoms  and  molecules,  it  remains  true  that  we  can  calcu- 
late with  some  degree  of  accuracy  the  position  of  the  moon  with 
reference  to  the  earth  on  a  particular  day  and  hour,  and  we  can 
trace  with  some  accuracy  the  path  of  a  projectile.  Whether  we 
may  not  justly  expect  to  find  in  the  notion  of  mechanism  the 
explanation  of  all  the  changes  that  take  place  in  the  material 
world,  is  a  question  that  it  is  by  no  means  absurd  to  raise,  even 
when  one  is  not  at  all  in  a  position  to  prove  that  all  changes  in 
matter  are  mechanical.  One  may  raise  the  question,  and  may  be 
inclined  to  give  it  an  affirmative  answer,  although  one  be  in  doubt 
whether  any  proposed  theory  of  the  intimate  constitution  of  matter 
be  the  correct  one. 

Very  early  in  the  history  of  speculative  thought  it  occurred  to 
men's  minds  that  those  things  which,  by  reason  of  their  minuteness, 
are  concealed  from  our  view,  might  be  reasoned  about  by  analogy 
with  those  things  which  are  more  open  to  inspection.  With  the 
principle  itself  we  can  have  no  quarrel.  We  act  upon  such  prin- 
1  Dr.  James  Ward,  "Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,"  Part  I. 


The  World  as  Mechanism  229 

ciples  in  every  department  of  human  thought.  It  is,  of  course, 
important  that  we  should  not  reason  loosely,  and  should  not  too 
hastily  arrive  at  conclusions.  And  if  any  assumptions  which  we 
have  been  impelled  to  make  should  turn  out  upon  closer  inspection 
to  entail  consequences  which  we  cannot  accept,  we  should  know 
how  to  repudiate  those  assumptions  without  tossing  overboard  with 
them  that  whole  body  of  observed  facts  and  well-grounded  gener- 
alizations which  have  established  their  right  to  be  regarded  as  a 
science,  if  only  an  imperfect  one. 

There  is  such  a  body  of  facts  and  generalizations  that  con- 
stitutes the  science  of  mechanics.  To  laugh  at  this  science  because 
it  has  its  limitations  is  unwise,  and  it  is  a  misconception  to  suppose 
that  a  science  must  be  completed  before  it  can  have  a  foundation. 
In  the  present  instance,  it  is  the  apex  of  the  pyramid  that  is  hid 
in  clouds,  not  its  foundation,  for  this  lies  in  plain  view,  and  no 
man  can  afford  to  despise  it. 

What  are  commonly  called  the  fundamental  principles  or  con- 
cepts of  the  sciences  are  not  fundamental  in  the  sense  that  they 
must  be  definitely  established  and  placed  beyond  the  possibility  of 
being  called  in  question,  before  the  science  can  be  built  up  at  all. 
Such  principles  or  concepts  are  the  ideal  of  a  completed  science,  if 
such  a  term  may  be  used.  They  are  not  to  be  found  in  a  science 
in  the  making.  Hence  one  may  freely  admit  that  men  of  science 
are  not  at  one  touching  the  final  definition  of  matter,  and  are  not 
agreed  upon  the  proper  formulation  of  the  laws  of  motion,  without 
on  that  account  being  compelled  to  deny  that  there  is  such  a  sci- 
ence as  mechanics,  and  that  in  it  we  find  a  satisfactory  explanation 
of  a  vast  number  of  the  changes  which  we  observe  to  be  taking 
place  in  the  world. 

And  one  may  make  these  admissions  without  being  compelled 
to  abandon  the  hope  that,  with  the  extension  of  human  knowledge, 
a  vast  number  of  other  changes,  which  cannot  now  be  seen  to  find 
their  explanation  as  these  do,  may  be  found  to  fall  in  the  same 
general  class,  and  may  become  luminous  with  a  significance  now 
denied  to  them.  It  is  dogmatism  to  insist  that  the  material  world 
cannot  be  a  perfect  mechanism,  merely  on  the  ground  that,  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge,  it  cannot  be  proved  to  be  such. 
What  we  should  ask  ourselves  is  this  :  What,  on  the  whole,  is  it 
reasonable  for  us  to  believe,  and  with  what  degree  of  assurance 
should  we  believe  it?  He  who  is  accustomed  to  weigh  evidence, 


230  The  External  World 

and  who  realizes  the  limitations  of  our  actual  knowledge,  will  take 
his  position  on  such  a  subject  tentatively,  and  will  hold  himself 
in  readiness  to  abandon  it  when  good  reason  is  adduced  for  his 
doing  so. 

There  is  one  general  consideration,  touching  the  attitude  of 
Dr.  Ward  and  of  many  other  persons  toward  the  mechanical  view 
of  the  system  of  nature,  that  is  of  no  little  significance.  It  is  this : 
The  energetic  rejection  of  the  doctrine  that  the  material  world 
may  be  regarded  as  a  perfect  mechanism  appears  to  arise  (if  one 
may  judge  by  what  is  written  upon  the  subject)  out  of  the  convic- 
tion that  such  a  view  of  the  world  militates  against  certain  beliefs 
to  which  men  cling  with  a  good  deal  of  energy  and  which  they 
relinquish  with  reluctance. 

We  do  not  find  that  attacks  upon  the  conception  of  mechanism 
are  wholly  destructive  in  their  aim.  Those  who  cannot  find  in 
mechanics  an  explanation  of  the  changes  which  take  place  in  the 
material  world,  are  inclined  to  find  such  an  explanation  in  the 
action  and  interaction  of  minds.  They  do  not  merely  abandon  a 
proposed  view  of  nature  because  they  find  it  unsatisfactory,  and 
content  themselves  with  holding  no  view  at  all.  They  abandon 
one  view  to  take  up  with  another.  It  seems  just  to  ask  oneself 
whether,  if  there  were  the  same  emotional  bias  against  the  second 
view  that  appears  to  exist  against  the  first,  it  would  be  found  so 
satisfactory  as  many  seem  to  find  it?  Are  there  no  difficulties 
connected  with  the  second  view?  Do  we  there  find  everything 
clear  and  comprehensible  ? 

Let  us  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  we  discover, 
upon  reflection,  that  the  conception  of  matter  remains  to  us  obscure  ; 
that  we  can  gain  no  very  clear  notion  of  what  is  meant  by  mass ; 
that  we  are  more  or  less  in  the  dark  as  to  how  the  i-dea  of  cau- 
sality can  be  connected  with  the  changes  in  the  material  world  ; 
that  the  laws  of  motion,  as  at  present  formulated,  do  not  seem 
to  us  to  account  satisfactorily  for  the  behavior  of  all  material  par- 
ticles in  the  presence  of  each  other.  Shall  we  on  this  account 
repudiate  the  science  of  mechanics,  and  give  up  all  attempts  at  a 
mechanical  explanation  of  the  changes  which  take  place  in  the 
world  of  matter  ? 

If  so,  what  should  we  do  in  the  case  of  mind  ?  Are  there  no 
disputes  as  to  the  ultimate  nature  of  the  mind  ?  Is  there  a  science, 
or  even  the  beginning  of  a  science,  that  sets  forth  with  any 


The  World  as  Mechanism  231 

approach  to  clearness  the  relation  of  mind  to  matter,  and  the 
method  by  which  minds  act  upon  material  particles  or  upon  each 
other  ?  Is  it  more  evident  what  is  meant  by  causal  efficiency  when 
one  speaks  of  minds  than  when  one  speaks  of  masses  of  matter? 
"  Intersubjective  intercourse  "  is  a  sounding  phrase  that  calls  our 
attention  to  the  fact,  recognized  in  our  common  experience,  that, 
in  some  sense,  minds  stand  in  relation  to  each  other.  But  in  what 
sense?  How  can  a  mind  be  related  to  another?  Has  the  vague 
knowledge  of  the  plain  man  really  been  replaced  by  something 
that  has  a  right  to  be  regarded  as  science  ?  Surely  the  science  of 
mechanics,  unsatisfactory  as  it  may  be,  has  progressed  far  beyond 
our  knowledge  of  mind,  of  its  relations  to  matter,  and  of  its  rela- 
tions to  other  minds. 

Here  we  see  in  a  glass,  darkly ;  each  man  is  busied  with  his 
own  speculations,  and  they  are  worth  all  the  labor  which  he 
devotes  to  them.  But  a  science  we  have  not,  unless  we  extend 
the  meaning  of  the  term  so  as  to  cover  those  tentative  gropings 
for  the  truth  which  precede  established  knowledge.  To  find  fault 
with  the  science  of  mechanics,  and  to  take  up  with  the  vague 
notions  which  men  have  of  minds,  the  activity  of  minds,  the  rela- 
tion of  minds  to  matter,  and  their  relation  to  each  other,  is  about 
as  sensible  as  it  would  be  to  reject  the  refinements  of  the  developed 
science  of  mechanics  and  take  up  with  the  crude  mechanical 
notions  possessed  by  the  uneducated.  That  material  things  act  upon 
one  another,  and  that  minds  act  and  react,  the  plain  man  does  not 
doubt.  He  sees  nothing  incomprehensible  in  the  premises  on  the 
one  side  or  on  the  other.  It  is  the  philosopher  who  becomes  con- 
scious of  the  inadequacy  of  his  conceptions,  and  whose  reflections 
sometimes  tempt  him  to  reject  them  altogether.  But  to  treat 
one  class  of  conceptions  in  the  critical  spirit  of  the  philosopher, 
and  to  accept  the  other  with  the  naivete  of  the  unreflective,  is 
surely  inadmissible. 

If,  then,  it  is  right  to  lay  great  emphasis  on  the  difficulties 
which  suggest  themselves  when  one  undertakes  a  critical  investi- 
gation of  the  fundamental  concepts  of  the  science  of  mechanics, 
it  must  be  equally  just  to  emphasize  the  difficulties  which  arise 
when  one  endeavors  to  make  quite  clear  to  oneself  what  is  meant 
by  minds,  their  relation  to  material  things,  and  their  relation  to 
each  other.  If  one  insists  upon  clearness  and  consistency  in  the 
former  field,  and  is  content  to  get  along  without  it  in  the  latter, 


232  The  External  World 

it  must  be  either  that,  in  the  latter  field,  the  attainment  of  exact 
knowledge  is  looked  upon  as,  in  the  nature  of  things,  hopeless  ;  or 
that  the  deficiencies  of  our  knowledge  are  hidden  from  us  by  an 
emotional  bias  that  inclines  us  strongly  to  adopt  certain  doctrinal 
statements  whether  they  are  clear  to  us  or  not. 

2.  Thus  we  see  that  one  cannot,  by  merely  dwelling  upon 
the  present  limitations  of  the  science  of  mechanics,  prove  that 
it  is  unreasonable  to  assume,  as  a  working  hypothesis  at  least, 
that  the  material  world  is  a  mechanism  all  the  changes  in  which 
can  be  accounted  for  without  passing  beyond  it  to  something  else. 
Let  us  make  such  an  assumption. 

In  the  orderly  succession  of  the  states  which  constitute  the 
life-history  of  this  organism  we  have  the  physical  order  of  causes 
and  their  effects.  It  is,  of  course,  clear  that  our  knowledge  of 
physical  causes  and  their  effects  must  be  imperfect  as  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  world-mechanism  is  imperfect.  The  boy  who  strikes 
a  dog  with  a  stick  recognizes  the  answering  yelp  as  a  consequent, 
to  which  the  movement  of  the  stick  is  a  corresponding  antecedent. 
The  physiologist  interpolates  an  extremely  complicated  series 
of  occurrences  between  the  two,  and  regards  the  blow  as  by  no 
means  a  proximate  cause,  while  admitting  it  as  a  member  in  the 
causal  nexus.  Both  recognize  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect, 
but  to  the  latter  the  whole  system  has  become  a  vastly  more 
complicated  thing  than  it  is  to  the  former.  And  the  metaphysi- 
cian, who  may  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  assignable 
limit  to  a  possible  increase  in  the  minuteness  of  our  knowledge 
of  the  real  world  and  its  changes,  may  not  unreasonably  deem 
it  absurd  to  use  the  expression  "  proximate  cause  "  in  any  but  a 
relative  sense.  Still,  he  has  the  right  to  use  it  to  indicate  an 
antecedent  which,  in  the  actual  state  of  our  knowledge,  seems 
to  be  nearest  to  a  given  consequent. 

In  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  when  thus  conceived,  there 
seems  to  be  nothing  very  occult  or  mysterious.  The  conception 
of  causality  seems,  however,  to  be  a  stone  of  stumbling  to  some, 
and  it  is  worth  while  to  devote  some  time  to  its  analysis,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  it  has  been  discussed,  and  well  discussed, 
by  various  writers.  In  connection  with  it  there  appear  to  arise 
some  very  general  misconceptions,  and  misconceptions  which 
may  materially  modify  one's  view  of  the  mechanism  of  nature. 

In  common  life  we  are  in  the  habit  of  picking  out  that  element 


The  World  as  Mechanism  233 

in  the  total  antecedent  of  an  occurrence  which  happens  to  be  for 
some  reason  of  peculiar  interest  and  importance,  and  of  calling 
it  the  cause.  This  may  easily  occasion  mistaken  notions  of  cause 
and  effect.  We  point  out  that  Smith  was  the  cause  of  the 
accident  that  happened  to  Jones,  in  that  he  handled  his  gun 
carelessly.  Jones  himself  we  do  not  speak  of  as  contributing 
to  the  result.  Yet  it  is  quite  clear  that  a  man  cannot  be  shot  in 
absentia,  and  the  bodily  presence  of  the  injured  man  was  an  in- 
dispensable part  of  the  antecedent  if  the  occurrence  were  to  take 
place  at  all.  When  we  leave  the  interests  of  common  life  and 
pass  to  the  scientific  contemplation  of  the  order  of  nature,  we 
must  view  things  with  an  impartial  eye,  and  must  not  give  Smith 
more  credit  than  he  deserves. 

In  common  life  we  emphasize  the  distinction  between  agent  and 
sufferer.  At  times  we  regard  ourselves  as  actively  bringing  about 
changes  in  other  things,  and  at  times  we  deplore  the  fact  that 
external  things  bring  about  changes  in  us.  We  look  upon  our- 
selves as  active  when  we  move  along  the  street  in  pursuance  of  a 
desired  end,  and  as  wholly  passive  with  respect  to  the  falling  tile 
that  unexpectedly  interrupts  our  progress.  This  distinction  we 
carry  over  to  things  inanimate,  and  the  notions  of  activity  and  pas- 
sivity become  more  or  less  confused  with  those  of  cause  and  effect. 

But  in  the  conception  of  nature  as  mechanism  this  distinction 
between  active  and  passive  wholly  vanishes.  The  moving 
billiard-ball  comes  in  contact  with  the  ball  at  rest.  The  former 
comes  to  rest  and  the  latter  is  set  in  motion.  We  are  at  first 
inclined  to  regard  the  one  as  active  and  the  other  as  the  passive 
recipient  of  its  activity.  But  a  little  reflection  and  the  most 
elementary  knowledge  of  mechanical  laws  make  clear  to  us 
that  the  second  ball  has  affected  the  first  as  much  as  the  first 
has  affected  the  second.  A  series  of  changes  has  taken  place  in 
the  spatial  relations  of  certain  masses  of  matter,  and  it  is  only 
through  misconception  that  we  can  regard  a  single  mass  of  matter 
as  responsible  for  the  series  of  changes  as  a  whole.  When  we  do 
so  we  are  carrying  over  to  a  field  in  which  it  has  lost  its  signifi- 
cance, a  conception  which  has  its  legitimate  application  only  in 
another  field. 

The  same  reasoning  may  be  applied  to  the  case  of  the  boy 
striking  the  dog.  If  we  will  regard  boy,  dog,  and  stick  as 
merely  a  part  of  the  material  system  of  things,  as  collocations 


234  The  External  World 

of  matter  the  changes  in  which  take  place  according  to  mechan- 
ical laws,  it  is  impossible  to  look  upon  the  boy  as  active  and  the 
dog  as  the  passive  recipient  of  his  action.  When  we  do  so  re- 
gard them  we  are  employing  conceptions  which  have  a  signifi- 
cance only  in  the  subjective  world  of  desires  and  volitions,  a 
world  with  which  we  have  nothing  to  do  so  long  as  we  confine 
our  attention  to  the  material  universe  and  its  motions. 

To  the  eye  with  its  field  of  view  thus  circumscribed,  nothing  is 
present  save  certain  groupings  of  material  particles  which  pass 
through  a  series  of  changes  in  their  relative  positions.  The 
notions  of  activity  and  passivity  have  disappeared,  but  not  so 
the  notions  of  cause  and  effect.  The  changes  through  which  the 
whole  system  passes  are  explicable  according  to  the  laws  of  me- 
chanics, and  each  antecedent  condition  is  the  cause  of  the  one 
which  immediately  follows  it.  The  relation  of  cause  and  effect  is 
a  temporal  one,  and  marks  the  order  of  the  successive  states  in 
the  life-history  of  the  system ;  it  is  not  a  spatial  one,  which 
separates  off  one  part  of  the  system  from  another  part.  In  other 
words,  the  boy  and  the  stick  cannot  be  made  in  some  sort  an 
antecedent,  and  the  dog  a  consequent;  but  boy,  stick,  and  dog 
are  all  antecedent,  and  are  all  consequent  as  well  —  the  former 
at  the  one  instant,  and  the  latter  at  the  next. 

The  erroneous  popular  judgment  which  would  make  the  boy 
the  sole  cause  of  the  dog's  yelp,  seems  to  arise  from  a  double  error: 
the  attention  is  fixed  upon  a  part  of  the  total  antecedent  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  rest ;  and  there  is  present  the  mistaken  notion 
that  only  that  can  be  a  cause  which  is  "active."  The  popular 
judgment  is  not  without  its  justification  from  a  practical  point  of 
view.  It  is  not  a  mere  accident  that  men  come  to  think  and 
speak  thus.  Nevertheless,  the  popular  judgment  is  shot  through 
with  misapprehension  and  confusion,  which  should,  in  scientific 
discussions,  be  eliminated.  The  notions  cause  and  activity,  effect 
and  passivity,  should  be  carefully  divorced  from  one  another  when 
we  concern  ourselves  with  an  exact  description  of  the  changes 
which  take  place  in  the  material  world.  That  the  notions  ac- 
tivity and  passivity  are  of  the  utmost  significance  in  their  proper 
field,  one  may  freely  admit.  But  it  is  important  to  bear  in  mind 
that,  when  we  are  studying  the  successive  positions  of  matter  in 
motion,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  them  at  all. 

It  is  an   imperfect   apprehension   of   the    distinction   between 


The  World  as  Mechanism  235 

causality  and  activity  that  has  misled  certain  writers 1  into  think- 
ing that  natural  science  should  drop  altogether  the  notion  of 
causality,  and  in  place  of  an  explanation  by  a  reference  to  causes, 
substitute  a  description  of  the  orderly  series  of  changes  that  take 
place  in  the  world  of  matter. 

Just  so  long  as  he  confuses  causality  with  activity,  will  the 
student  of  mechanics,  who  sees  clearly  that  the  notion  of  activity 
has  no  place  in  his  science,  be  inclined  to  deny  that  he  has  to  do 
with  causes  and  their  effects.  It  is  because  he  still  thinks  of  "  an 
explanation  by  a  reference  to  causes  "  as  something  occult  and 
mysterious  —  as  a  procedure  akin  to  the  blind  gropings  behind  the 
veil  of  phenomena  popularly  attributed  to  the  metaphysician  — 
that  he  repudiates  such  explanations  altogether  and  confines  him- 
self to  what  he  calls  "  description." 

But  it  is  unwise  to  discard  terms  which  for  centuries  have 
served  a  useful  purpose,  which  are  firmly  rooted  in  men's  minds 
and  are  fairly  well  understood  even  by  those  who  cannot  subject 
them  to  careful  criticism,  and  which  have  no  satisfactory  equiva- 
lents but  leave  a  gap  when  they  are  discarded.  For  such  terms 
one  cannot  substitute  terms  with  other  associations  without  giving 
rise  to  suspicion  and  misunderstanding.  It  is  far  better  to  correct 
popular  misconceptions  of  the  proper  significance  of  words  in  com- 
mon use,  and  point  out  how  such  words  may  find  their  appropriate 
application.  To  insist  that  science  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
indication  of  causes  and  their  effects,  when  for  centuries  that  has 
been  supposed  by  its  votaries  to  be  its  chief  occupation,  can  only 
occasion  bewilderment.  To  show,  on  the  other  hand,  that  there 
has  been  some  error  as  well  as  some  truth  in  the  popular  appre- 
hension of  the  natural  order  of  causes  and  their  effects  need  not 
have  this  unfortunate  result. 

3.  Closely  akin  to  the  error  of  denying  that,  in  the  succession 
of  changes  revealed  in  the  material  world,  we  have  an  order  of 
causes  and  their  effects,  is  the  error  of  denying  that  the  relation 
between  an  effect  and  its  cause  is  a  necessary  one.  An  effect  is 
not  contained  in  its  cause  as  the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism  is  con- 
tained in  its  premises ;  natural  necessity  is  not  logical  or  mathe- 
matical necessity.  Seeing  this,  a  man  may  feel  impelled  to  deny 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  natural  necessity  at  all. 

1  E.g.  Mach,  "Popular  Science  Lectures,"  English  trans.,  pp.  253-254,  and 
Ward,  "Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,"  Lect.  II  and  XVII. 


236  The  External  World 

But  the  word  "necessity"  has,  and  has  had  for  centuries  past, 
two  distinct  meanings,  and  no  man  has  a  right  to  throw  away  one 
of  them  merely  because  it  is  not  the  other.  To  show  that  a  given 
antecedent  is  a  "  necessary  "  antecedent  or  cause,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  show  that  the  consequent  is  logically  contained  in  it  and  cannot 
be  denied  without  self-contradiction.  It  is  only  necessary  to  turn 
to  the  inductive  logic  and  see  whether  there  is  good  reason  to 
believe  that  the  more  or  less  complete  elimination  of  other  ante- 
cedents will  leave  this  relation  of  antecedent  and  consequent 
virtually  intact.  The  necessity  of  nature  is  but  another  name  for 
the  orderliness  to  be  discovered  in  the  system  of  things,  and  it  is 
a  repudiation  both  of  the  knowledge  of  things  which  obtains  in 
common  life  and  of  the  more  exact  knowledge  characteristic 
of  science,  to  maintain  that  we  cannot  attain  to  a  more  or  less 
detailed  acquaintance  with  this  world-order.  It  is  not  the  duty 
of  the  metaphysician  to  show  what  antecedents  are  "  necessary  " 
or  "  indispensable."  It  is  the  duty  of  the  investigator  of  nature ; 
and  he  can  fulfil  this  duty  perfectly  well  without  paying  the  least 
attention  to  those  mystical  notions  of  causality  which  have  in  the 
past  introduced  a  needless  obscurity  into  human  thought. 

The  relation  between  cause  and  effect  is,  therefore,  a  necessary 
one,  in  an  intelligible  sense  of  the  word,  and  the  denial  of  this 
necessity  can  only  result  in  shaking  that  wholesome  confidence  in 
the  order  of  nature  possessed  in  some  degree  by  the  unlearned  and 
in  a  higher  degree  by  those  whose  knowledge  of  nature  is  more 
exact  and  extended. 

Sometimes  this  denial  proceeds  from  a  desire  to  remove  that 
feeling  of  apprehension  which  arises  in  many  minds  at  the  thought 
of  this  gigantic  mechanism  which  seems  to  sweep  through  its 
series  of  successive  conditions  with  the  impassivity  of  fate  —  a 
world  in  which  even  a  sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground  except 
according  to  law ;  but  one  in  which  the  dance  of  an  atom,  the  fall 
of  a  sparrow,  the  death-struggle  of  a  man,  appear  to  have  one  and 
the  same  significance,  and  to  be  summed  up  in  those  more  or 
less  complicated  formulae  which  describe  the  motions  of  material 
particles  with  reference  to  each  other.  Even  so  keen  a  man  as 
Professor  Huxley  tries  this  method  of  soothing  the  anxieties  of 
those  who  contemplate  such  a  world  with  discontent,  and  suggests 
that  if  we  will  try  to  eliminate  from  our  thoughts  of  the  order  of 
nature  the  notion  of  necessity,  and  will  bear  in  mind  that  we  are 


The  World  as  Mechanism  237 

dealing  with  the  mere  relation  of  antecedence  and  consequence, 
we  shall  feel  rather  better.1 

It  is  quite  true  that  to  the  unreflective  there  may  seem  to  be 
something  less  august  and  inevitable  in  the  succession  of  changes 
which  take  place  in  the  material  world  when  one  has  denied 
necessity  to  nature  and  has  elected  to  regard  what  takes  place 
before  one's  eyes  as  a  mere  play  of  antecedents  and  consequents. 
The  starch  appears  to  be  taken  out  of  the  fabric ;  it  hangs  more 
limp  and  diaphanous.  And  yet,  what  has  one  gained?  The 
pattern  is  precisely  what  it  was.  If  it  was  ugly  then,  it  is  ugly 
now.  Figure  succeeds  figure  in  the  same  inevitable  order,  and 
he  who  had  reason  for  complaint  before,  has  lost  none  by  the 
change.  The  word  "  necessity  "  he  has  found  unpleasant,  and  some 
one  has  obligingly  given  the  thing  a  new  name.  Even  so  may  the 
trembling  householder  decide  to  call  the  midnight  marauder  a 
visitor,  and  feel  reassured  and  comforted.  Meanwhile  the  man 
has  suffered  a  real  loss.  He  has  lost  sight  of  a  useful  distinction, 
and  the  order  of  nature  has  come  to  seem  to  him  less  stable  and 
dependable  than  it  was  before. 

It  is,  then,  through  an  incomplete  apprehension  of  what  is 
properly  meant  by  natural  necessity  that  one  is  led  to  deny 
necessity  to  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  And  it  is  through  a 
misapprehension  of  what  is  meant  by  explanation,  that  one  is 
led  to  maintain  that  it  is  impossible  to  explain  why  certain 
causes  should  be  followed  by  certain  effects.2 

1 "  Methods  and  Kesults,"  N.Y.,  1893 :  "  On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life." 
2  I  know  no  better  illustration  of  this  exenteration  of  the  notion  of  causality 
than  that  presented  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Professor  Pearson's  "Grammar  of 
Science."  He  discards  the  idea  that  a  cause  is  the  occult  and  mysterious  thing  that 
has  sometimes  passed  by  that  name.  He  agrees  with  Mill  in  thinking  that  causa- 
tion is  "  uniform  antecedence."  But  he  finds  it  necessary  to  insist  that  the  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  is  not  a  necessary  one  (2d.  ed.,  pp.  113,  116,  118,  119),  and  he 
reiterates  the  statement  that  science,  in  discovering  causes  and  effects,  does  not 
explain  things :  "  Mechanical  science  no  more  explains  or  accounts  for  the  motions 
of  a  molecule  or  of  a  planet  than  biological  science  accounts  for  the  growth  of  a 
cell  "  (p.  115)  ;  "  in  no  single  case  have  we  discovered  why  it  is  that  these  motions 
are  taking  place  ;  science  describes  how  they  take  place,  but  the  why  remains  a 
mystery  "  (p.  120)  ;  "  when  we  say  that  we  have  reached  a  '  mechanical  explana- 
tion '  of  any  group  of  phenomena,  we  only  mean  that  we  have  described  in  the  con- 
cise language  of  mechanics  a  certain  routine  of  perceptions.  We  are  neither  able 
to  explain  why  sense-impressions  have  a  definite  sequence,  nor  to  assert  that  there 
is  really  an  element  of  necessity  in  the  phenomena"  (p.  116).  It  seems  odd  that 
Professor  Pearson  did  not  see  that,  if  science  (in  the  broad  sense  of  the  word)  had 


238  The  External  World 

It  was  remarked  by  Immanuel  Kant  that  it  requires  some 
sagacity  for  a  man  to  know  what  questions  he  may  safely  ask. 
The  remark  was  a  wise  one.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  it  is  proper 
to  ask  for  the  explanation  of  this  or  that  occurrence,  and  there  is 
a  sense  in  which  it  is  not.  Both  in  common  life  and  in  science  we 
are  constantly  seeking  an  explanation  of  what  comes  to  pass,  and 
are  constantly  finding  certain  explanations  satisfactory.  The  fall 
of  the  apple  to  the  earth,  the  motion  of  the  moon  in  its  orbit,  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides,  all  these  we  regard  as  explained  when 
they  are  seen  to  be  illustrations  of  the  laws  of  mechanics.  The 
particular  occurrence  in  question  is  found  to  have  its  appropriate 
place  in  the  mechanical  world-order,  and  we  should  rest  content 
with  this,  for  this  is  explanation. 

But  if  we  will  go  on  to  insist  that  the  whole  mechanical  sys- 
tem is  a  something  to  be  accepted  as  inexplicable  fact,  we  deserve 
any  unhappiness  that  such  reflections  may  occasion  us.  We  extend 
the  meaning  of  the  word  "  explanation  "  quite  beyond  what  is  legiti- 
mate either  in  common  thought  or  in  science,  and  then  complain 
that  we  lack  an  explanation  of  something,  sadly  electing  to  regard 
this  something  as  "  brute  fact."  This  is  not  a  recognition  of  the 
truth  that  no  explanation  can  sensibly  be  asked  for;  it  is  an 
unwise  insistence  upon  the  fact  that  none  is  forthcoming,  and, 
of  course,  carries  with  it  the  suggestion  that  it  would  be  highly 
desirable  if  one  were  forthcoming.  "  Brute  fact "  means  fact 
that  stands  in  need  of  explanation  and  appears  to  lack  it. 
To  call  the  system  of  things  as  a  whole  "  brute  fact "  is  simply 
misleading. 

4.  Such  reflections  as  the  above  should,  I  think,  serve  to  set 
aside  certain  of  the  objections  which  some  may  be  inclined  to  urge 
against  the  world  as  mechanism.  If  the  conception  of  mechanism 
seems  to  us  absurd,  it  is  because  we  imperfectly  comprehend  what 
that  conception  is,  as  it  is  gradually  growing  clearer  to  science. 
If  we  deny  the  existence  of  material  causes,  it  is  because  we  con- 
found the  notions  of  causality  and  activity,  or  erroneously  assume 
that  a  cause  can  only  be  something  occult  and  mysterious,  which 
must  be  eschewed  by  science.  If  we  repudiate  natural  necessity, 
it  is  because  we  fail  to  perceive  that  the  word  "  necessity  "  is  an 
ambiguous  one.  If  we  insist  that  science  cannot  offer  an  explana- 

really  succeeded  in  finishing  her  task,  there  ought  to  be  no  why  and  no  mystery.   They 
disappear  by  absorption  into  the  how. 


The  World  as  Mechanism  239 

tion  of  the  occurrences  in  the  material  world,  it  is  oecause  we  give 
the  word  "  explanation  "  an  unjustifiable  meaning. 

It  is,  however,  quite  possible  for  one  to  avoid  these  errors  and 
yet  to  feel  dubious  about  yielding  assent  to  the  doctrine  that  the 
world  of  matter  is  a  perfect  and  independent  mechanism,  every 
change  in  every  part  of  which  must  find  its  whole  explanation  in 
the  system  itself. 

We  are  all  impressed  by  the  striking  contrast  between  the 
living  and  what  is  recognized  as  mechanical.  The  word  "  machine  " 
calls  before  our  mind  a  steam-engine,  a  spinning-jenny,  or  a  print- 
ing press ;  a  gross  clattering  mass  of  metal,  between  which  and  a 
rose  or  a  violet  the  difference  seems  to  be  world-wide.  The 
machine  obeys  laws  clearly  seen  to  be  mechanical,  it  is  compara- 
tively simple,  it  appears  adapted  to  the  attainment  of  a  particular 
end,  but  is  incapable  of  attaining  it  by  any  but  the  one  direct  path 
along  which  we  have  set  it  moving.  The  plant  presents  the  phe- 
nomena of  life ;  which  means  the  direct  opposite  of  all  this.  Into 
the  indefinite  complexity  of  its  structure  we  have  no  means  of 
seeing  clearly ;  its  growth  and  development  cannot  be  shown  to  be 
the  result  of  mechanical  causes  exclusively ;  it  appears  to  move 
toward  an  end  of  its  own,  and  to  have  a  capacity  for  attaining  this 
end  by  certain  by-paths  when  for  some  reason  the  direct  road  is 
obstructed.  The  plant  develops  according  to  a  certain  plan,  and 
after  this  plan  reproduces  its  kind.  When  the  end  of  a  branch  is 
pruned  away,  buds  form  and  new  sprouts  make  their  appearance 
to  carry  out  the  idea  with  which  the  mutilation  interfered.  If  we 
have  here  a  machine,  it  is  at  least  a  machine  which  must  not  be 
brought  down  to  the  level  of  the  mechanisms  constructed  by  man 
to  carry  out  his  purposes. 

And  if  we  pass  from  plant  to  animal  the  contrast  is,  if  possible, 
more  striking.  I  have  said  above  that,  in  the  mechanical  view  of 
the  material  world,  the  boy  who  strikes  a  dog  with  a  stick,  and  the 
dog  that  receives  the  blow,  are  simply  masses  of  matter  under- 
going certain  changes  in  their  space-relations  to  one  another,  all 
of  which  changes  are  explicable  by  the  laws  of  mechanics,  and 
form  an  inevitable  succession  of  states  related  to  each  other  as 
cause  and  effect.  Yet  the  fact  remains  that  a  boy  whom  we 
recognize  to  be  of  a  certain  stamp  will,  as  we  know  before  the  act, 
hit  the  dog  under  the  most  varying  circumstances  —  whether  the 
animal  be  on  this  side  of  him  or  on  that,  within  easy  reach  of  him 


240  The  External  World 

or  further  away,  standing  still  or  moving.  He  will  even  chase 
him  around  the  house  again  and  again ;  in  which  case  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  successive  positions  of  the  material  particles  which 
make  up  boy,  stick,  and  dog,  in  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to 
other  things,  must  attain  to  enormous  complexity.  The  one 
certain  thing,  in  the  present  incomplete  state  of  our  knowledge, 
seems  to  be  that  the  boy  will  hit  the  dog  —  i.e.  that,  to  speak 
mechanically,  a  certain  final  collocation  of  material  particles  will 
be  attained.  The  path  by  which  it  is  to  be  attained  seems  highly 
uncertain. 

If,  then,  this  boy  and  this  dog  are  machines,  they  certainly 
differ  widely  from  the  machines  which  are  commonly  recognized 
as  such,  and  it  is  manifestly  an  error  to  overlook  the  difference. 
It  is  possible  to  be  so  impressed  .by  it  as  to  maintain  that  the 
notion  of  mechanism  must  be  abandoned  altogether  when  one  is 
considering  such  things,  and  with  it  abandoned  the  explanation  by 
a  reference  to  efficient  causes  which  is  the  very  sheet-anchor  of 
science.  On  the  other  hand,  one  may  estimate  this  difference  at 
its  full  value,  and  nevertheless  believe  that  the  phenomena  pre- 
sented by  living  beings,  growth,  development,  reproduction,  activ- 
ities of  the  most  varied  description,  dissolution,  —  all  would  be 
capable  of  description  in  mechanical  terms,  were  our  knowledge 
and  our  intellectual  powers  sufficiently  advanced.  One  may  point 
out  that  the  possibility  of  a  detailed  description  of  the  processes 
by  means  of  which  things  come  about  is  not  in  the  least  incompat- 
ible with  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  such  and  such  things  do 
come  about.  In  other  words,  one  may  point  out  that  the  existence 
of  efficient  causes  —  the  "  necessary  antecedents  "  of  which  I  have 
spoken  above  —  is  not  incompatible  with  that  of  final  causes,  for 
these  latter  are  only  the  ends  which  are  attained  through  the 
instrumentality  of  the  former. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  experience  that  it  is  quite  possible 
to  have  a  knowledge  that  such  and  such  an  occurrence  will  take 
place,  and  yet  to  be  in  the  dark  as  to  the  series  of  causes  which 
will  bring  it  about.  One  may  know  that  it  is  likely  to  rain,  and 
yet  have  the  vaguest  possible  notion  of  those  atmospheric  changes 
which  give  birth  to  the  falling  drops.  Similarly,  the  simulta- 
neous appearance  of  boy  and  dog  within  one's  horizon  may  give 
rise  to  the  conviction  that  sooner  or  later  these  two  masses  of 
matter  will  stand  in  the  definite  mutual  relation  referred  to  above; 


The  World  as  Mechanism  241 

and  yet  one  may  have  no  clear  idea  of  the  particular  series  of 
changes  which  will  precede  this  particular  result. 

Thus  one  may  know  empirically, that  with  one's  gun  at  a  cer- 
tain elevation,  with  a  given  charge  of  powder,  and  with  a  given 
projectile,  one  may  hit  a  target  at  a  fixed  distance.  At  the  same 
time  one  may  be  quite  unable  to  calculate  the  path  of  the  projectile 
from  the  gun  to  the  target.  When  one  knows  something  of  the 
science  of  mechanics,  one  no  longer  thinks  of  the  beginning  and 
end  of  this  series  of  changes  as  constituting  all  that  is  worthy  of 
attention  in  the  occurrence  as  a  whole.  There  are  no  longer  one 
cause  and  one  effect ;  there  is  an  indefinite  series  of  causes  each 
followed  by  its  effect,  and  the  initial  antecedent  is  no  more  impor- 
tant to  the  final  result  than  are  any  of  the  others. 

Those  who  incline  to  view  the  universe  of  matter  as  a  perfect 
mechanism  must  look  upon  the  series  of  changes  which  take  place 
in  the  relative  positions  of  the  boy  and  the  dog  as  constituting 
such  a  chain  of  causes  and  effects.  They  cannot  admit  for  a  mo- 
ment that  the  end  is  fixed  independently  of  the  means.  To  them 
the  end  is  simply  one  term  in  a  complicated  series,  and  its  coming 
into  existence  is  conditioned  upon  the  links  in  the  chain  preceding 
it.  But  they  may  freely  admit  that  they  are  sometimes  pretty 
sure  of  the  end  when  they  are  by  no  means  clear  as  to  the  exact 
path  by  which  it  will  be  attained,  as  has  been  said  above.  They 
may  point  out  that  we  can  be  very  sure  when  we  drop  a  ball  inside 
of  the  rim  of  the  bowl  on  the  table  before  us  that  the  ball  will 
ultimately  come  to  rest  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  bowl,  and  yet  we 
may  find  it  difficult  or  even  impossible  to  describe  in  detail  all  the 
motions  of  the  ball  before  it  comes  to  rest.  Which  means  that  in 
a  causal  series  admittedly  mechanical  it  may  be  possible  to  predict 
the  appearance  of  a  given  term,  even  when  we  have  no  definite 
knowledge  of  those  that  precede  it. 

To  all  this  it  may  be  objected  that  it  is  easy  to  suggest  that  all 
the  changes  which  take  place  in  those  masses  of  matter  that  we 
call  living  beings  may  find  their  explanation  within  the  realm  of 
mechanics,  but  it  is  another  thing  to  prove  that  they  actually  do 
this.  When  the  boy's  gaze  has  once  rested  upon  the  dog,  the  end 
seems  to  be  fixed,  as  in  the  ancient  conceptions  of  fate,  and  the 
means  appear  to  be  conditioned  by  the  end,  not  the  end  by  the 
means.  Can  a  mechanism  select  this  and  reject  that,  taking  what 
serves  a  given  end  and  refusing  what  does  not?  Has  any  one  the 


242  The  External  World 

least  conception  of  a  mechanism  that  can  pick  and  choose  in  this 
way  ?  If  not,  why  insist  that  living  beings  must  be  brought  under 
the  conception  of  mechanism  ? 

To  this  one  may  answer  that,  even  in  the  gross  mechanisms 
constructed  by  man,  we  are  not  without  some  suggestion  of  selec- 
tion. To  get  the  bit  of  chocolate  out  of  the  metal  case  that  stands 
against  the  wall  in  the  railway  station,  one  must  drop  the  appro- 
priate coin  into  the  slot,  just  as  one  must  deposit  the  appropriate 
coin  in  order  to  obtain  a  sandwich  from  the  woman  at  the  lunch- 
counter.  And  one  wholly  ignorant  of  the  extent  to  which  the 
construction  of  mechanisms  has  been  carried,  might  easily  be 
tempted  to  think  that  the  motions  of  the  machine  that  tests  the 
weight  of  the  coins  committed  to  it,  sorting  out  into  different 
heaps  the  perfect  and  the  imperfect,  are  determined  by  the  end  to 
be  attained  and  not  by  a  chain  of  mechanical  causes.  To  one  who 
understands  the  construction  of  such  mechanisms  there  is  nothing 
marvellous  in  the  thought  that  a  definite  end  will  be  attained  as 
the  result  of  a  strictly  mechanical  series  of  processes,  and  that  the 
attainment  of  other  results  will  be  provided  against  just  because 
of  this  series  of  causes. 

Between  the  most  ingenious  of  such  machines  and  the  boy  of 
whom  I  have  been  speaking,  there  is  doubtless  an  enormous  differ- 
ence, and  one  which  it  would  be  foolish  to  overlook.  But  it  should 
not  be  forgotten  that  between  the  human  body  and  organic  struc- 
tures which  are  less  highly  developed  there  are  also  differences 
which  are  sufficiently  striking.  We  are  not  compelled  to  pass  at 
a  jump  from  a  weighing-machine  to  a  man.  There  are  forms  of 
life  that  exhibit  phenomena  which,  if  they  do  not  serve  to  bridge 
the  gulf  between  the  organic  and  the  inorganic,  at  least  bring  us 
to  the  brink  with  a  strong  disposition  to  launch  away.  The  evi- 
dences of  what  we  are  inclined  to  recognize  as  choice,  in  an  un- 
equivocal sense  of  that  word,  grow  less  and  less  as  one  descends  in 
the  scale,  and  the  approach  to  mechanism,  as  we  commonly  think 
of  it,  seems  a  sufficiently  close  one. 

If  we  elect  to  believe  that  all  motions  in  matter  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  a  reference  to  mechanical  causes,  where  shall  we 
make  the  break  ?  Shall  it  be  between  the  organic  and  the  inor- 
ganic, or  shall  it  be  placed  somewhere  above  this  point?  The 
question  is  not  an  absurd  one,  for,  as  the  student  of  the  history  of 
philosophy  well  knows,  thoughtful  men  have  not  been  at  one 


The  World  as  Mechanism  243 

touching  the  answer  that  should  be  given  to  it.  The  disciples  of 
Descartes  drew  the  line  between  man  and  all  that  lay  below  him. 
This  would  make  the  boy  of  our  illustration  something  more  than 
a  mechanism,  but  the  dog,  who  appears  equally  active,  and  almost 
equally  ingenious,  would  be  a  mechanism  and  nothing  more. 
Modern  science,  imbued  as  it  is  with  a  strong  desire  to  remove 
what  seem  to  be  breaks  in  the  orderly  development  of  nature, 
would  find  it  difficult,  having  gone  as  far  as  this,  not  to  go  farther. 

The  adherent  of  the  view  that  the  material  world  is  through  and 
through  a  mechanism  may  argue  that  the  objection  which  has  been 
urged  to  his  view  is,  in  so  far  as  it  really  is  an  objection,  nothing 
more  than  an  argumentum  ad  ignorantiam. 

If  it  be  merely  intended  to  point  out  that,  on  the  slender  basis 
of  actual  knowledge  which  we  at  present  possess,  modesty  is  an 
appropriate  virtue,  and  dogmatism  a  thing  to  be  deplored,  even  the 
most  enthusiastic  student  of  science  should  welcome  the  admo- 
nition. It  is  foolish  to  maintain  that  we  know,  where  we  only  have 
hints  and  guesses.  It  is,  of  course,  also  foolish  to  reject  those 
hints  and  guesses,  if  they  are  the  best  that  we  have  at  the  present 
moment.  One  should  take  them  at  what  they  are  worth,  holding 
one's  opinion  tentatively,  and  striving  neither  to  be  blinded  to 
new  light  by  ancient  prejudices,  nor  carried  off  of  one's  feet  by  the 
currents  of  contemporary  thought,  which  may  or  may  not  happen 
to  be  setting  in  the  direction  of  true  progress. 

If,  again,  the  objector  merely  wishes  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
boys  are  not  such  machines  as  we  place  in  position  against  the 
wall  of  a  railway  station,  and  to  insist  upon  the  truth  that  there  is 
in  our  experience  such  a  thing  as  the  choice  of  ends  and  the  ad- 
justment of  means  to  their  attainment,  no  sensible  man  can  have 
any  quarrel  with  him  for  this.  There  can  be  no  more  serious 
error  than  to  suppose  that  because  all  the  changes  which  take 
place  in  a  boy's  body,  and  in  its  relations  to  other  things,  can 
be  brought  under  the  conception  of  mechanism,  therefore,  the 
boy  must  no  longer  be  regarded  as  a  boy,  but  rather  as  a  bit  of 
furniture.  As  well  argue  that  because  a  boy  is  an  animal  we 
must  look  upon  him  as  a  flea.  When  things  widely  diverse  are 
brought  under  the  same  general  concept,  it  does  not  mean  that 
the  differences  that  distinguish  them  are  obliterated.  It  is,  there- 
fore, of  the  utmost  importance  to  remember  that  an  extension  of 
the  concept  of  mechanism  does  not  in  the  least  wipe  out  the  dis- 


244  The  External  World 

tinction  between  what  are  commonly  recognized  as  machines,  and 
living  organisms.  That  distinction  is  a  marked  one,  and  one  must 
be  a  slave  to  one's  idea  when  one  is  misled  into  overlooking  it.  To 
call  attention  to  the  distinction,  where  there  is  danger  that  it  may 
be  forgotten,  is  a  public  service. 

But  if  the  objector  does  not  intend  to  do  either  of  the  things 
mentioned  just  above,  and  does  intend  dogmatically  to  maintain 
that  no  extension  of  our  knowledge  of  boy,  dog,  stick,  and  their 
material  environment — not  even  the  knowledge  of  which  at  present 
science  dreams  and  which  it  recognizes  as  quite  beyond  its  grasp 
—  would  reveal  that  the  series  of  changes  which  have  taken  place 
are  part  of  a  mechanical  order  of  things,  he  seems  to  arrogate  to 
himself  an  authority  to  which  he  can  lay  no  just  claim.  Were  he 
in  a  position  to  show  that  the  attainment  of  such  and  such  ends 
could  not  be  effected  by  a  series  of  mechanical  causes,  his  position 
would  be  a  reasonable  one.  As  he  is  only  in  a  position  to  show 
that  no  one  knows  just  how  it  can  be,  it  does  not  appear  very 
reasonable. 

It  does  not  seem,  then,  that  we  need  be  deterred  from  assum- 
ing, as  a  working  hypothesis  at  least,  that  the  universe  of  matter 
is  a  perfect  mechanism,  either  by  supposed  difficulties  connected 
with  the  concept  of  mechanism  itself,  or  by  the  fact  that  science  is 
not  now  in  a  position  to  prove  the  justice  of  all  its  guesses  at  the 
truth.  But  there  is  one  objection  which  appears  to  have  more 
weight.  In  our  common  experience  of  the  world,  it  is  an  undeni- 
able fact  that  there  are  such  things  as  minds.  It  is  as  fair  to  ask 
what  these  are,  and  what  is  their  true  place  in  a  reasonable  scheme 
of  the  system  of  things,  as  it  is  to  ask  any  of  the  questions  touch- 
ing the  nature  of  matter  with  which  the  student  of  physical  science 
occupies  himself.  For  an  answer  to  such  questions  one  can  no 
more  turn  directly  to  the  crude  and  undigested  experience  of  the 
plain  man,  than  one  can  for  an  answer  to  questions  concerning 
the  nature  of  matter.  Still,  there  is  a  way  of  approaching  such 
questions.  And  if  it  be  discovered  that  a  given  view  of  the  physi- 
cal universe  is  really  incompatible  with  what  seems,  after  critical 
examination,  to  be  known  about  minds,  it  is  an  argument  against 
that  view  not  to  be  despised. 


PART  III 
MIND   AND   MATTER 

CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  INSUFFICIENCY    OF  MATERIALISM 

IT  must  ever  remain  a  matter  of  regret  to  those  who  are  imbued 
with  the  scientific  spirit,  and  who  love  clear  thinking,  that  the 
works  of  Democritus  were  allowed  to  perish.  When  one  has 
wearied  one's  wings  by  soaring  in  the  empyrean  with  Plato ;  when 
one  aches  in  every  joint  after  an  agonizing  struggle  with  the  Aristo- 
telian conceptions  of  matter,  form,  moving  cause,  and  final  cause ; 
one  turns  with  a  sigh  of  relief  to  the  simpler  and  clearer  teachings 
of  the  ancient  materialism. 

The  system  is  easy  to  understand ;  its  outlines  are  distinct  and 
may  readily  be  followed  by  the  eye.  It  reveals  itself  to  one  frankly 
and  openly,  standing  naked  in  the  light  of  day,  stripped  of  that 
veil  of  ambiguous  words  and  unintelligible  expressions  with  which 
philosophic  systems  are  wont  to  drape  themselves.  It  informs  us 
that  nothing  exists  save  atoms  and  void  space.  These  atoms  differ 
from  one  another  only  in  size,  shape,  and  position.  They  have 
always  been  in  motion.  Their  mutual  collisions  result  in  mechan- 
ical combinations  from  which  are  born  world-systems,  with  their 
varied  phenomena.  Nothing  comes  from  nothing;  nothing  becomes 
non-existent.  The  cosmic  changes  are  but  translocations  of  mate- 
rial particles,  and  this  truth  may  be  grasped  by  the  reason,  though 
the  senses  are  too  dull  to  furnish  direct  verification  of  it.  The 
universe  is  a  universe  of  matter  in  motion,  a  gigantic  mechanism, 
the  successive  steps  in  whose  development  form  a  limitless  chain 
of  causes  and  effects  in  no  ambiguous  sense  of  those  words.  The 
whole  of  science  is  summed  up  in  the  comprehension  of  this  order 
of  causes. 

245 


246  Mind  and  Matter 

That  Democritus  was  an  unblushing  dogmatist,  and  cheerfully 
described  in  detail  all  sorts  of  things  of  which  he  could  have  no 
possible  knowledge,  seems  sufficiently  evident.  There  is  a  strik- 
ing difference  between  the  easy  birth  of  the  atomistic  doctrine  in 
ancient  times,  and  the  protracted  labor  which  resulted  in  the 
atomic  theory  as  we  have  it  now.  The  old  world  was  uncritical, 
and  cheerfully  optimistic  as  to  what  could  be  accomplished  by 
speculative  thought.  The  modern  world  is  more  cautious,  and 
has  a  somewhat  better  realization  of  the  magnitude  of  its  task. 
Hence  the  ancient  atomism  can  easily  be  criticised  in  detail ;  and 
yet  its  bitterest  assailant  cannot  fail  to  see  that  it  has  grasped 
with  marvellous  clearness  an  idea  in  which  men  of  science  are 
more  and  more  coming  to  rest,  the  idea  of  the  world  as  a  mechan- 
ism, the  life-history  of  which  is  summed  up  in  an  unbroken  chain 
of  mechanical  causes  and  effects.  The  teachings  of  Democritus, 
modernized  in  form  and  rendered  a  trifle  less  dogmatic,  would  not 
be  found  to  be  much  out  of  harmony  with  what  has  been  said  in 
the  preceding  chapter  touching  the  occurrences  which  take  place 
in  the  material  world. 

I  say  expressly,  touching  the  occurrences  which  take  place  in 
the  material  world,  for  that  chapter  has  concerned  itself  only  with 
matter  and  the  motions  of  matter,  ignoring  the  existence  of  any- 
thing beyond.  The  ancient  materialism  lays  down  for  itself,  it 
is  true,  the  same  limitations  ;  but  it  undertakes,  nevertheless,  to 
say  something  about  minds  and  their  knowledge  of  things,  a  field 
of  investigation  which  it  can  call  its  own,  as  we  shall  see,  only  as 
the  result  of  an  act  of  violence  which  rebaptizes  the  minds  and 
ignores  the  existence  of  their  knowledge  altogether.  Mind  is 
composed  of  fine,  round  atoms,  and  is  disseminated  through  the 
body.  Atoms  are  discharged  from  external  objects,  pass  through 
space  to  the  organs  of  sense,  and  mechanically  affect  the  mind ; 
thus  arises  the  knowledge  of  external  things. 

This  doctrine,  as  it  was  later  developed  in  detail  by  the  Epicu- 
reans,1 is  highly  ingenious  and,  to  men  at  a  certain  stage  of  their 
reflective  development,  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  attractive.  It  differs 
only  in  unessentials  from  the  type  of  doctrine  with  which  we  fre- 
quently meet  to-day,  in  men  of  science  who  have  paid  little  atten- 
tion to  philosophical  disciplines  and  are  unacquainted  with  the 
history  of  speculative  thought.  They  do  not  speak  of  mind-atoms, 
1  See  Lucretius,  "De  Eeruui  Xatura,"  III. 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  247 

but  there  is  much  talk  of  the  external  stimulus,  of  the  organ  of 
sense,  of  the  sensory  tracts,  of  the  central  nervous  system,  of  the 
motor  reaction.  There  is  also  a  tacit  assumption  that  with  an 
exhaustive  investigation  of  all  these,  the  whole  field  is  covered. 

Yet  it  is  clear  that  both  the  ancient  and  the  modern  materialism 
simplify  their  task  by  dropping  out  of  sight  what  is  most  obscure 
and  elusive,  and  fixing  their  attention  exclusively  upon  what  is 
comparatively  easy  to  grasp.  If  mind-atoms  differ  only  in  size  or 
shape  or  mobility  from  other  atoms,  if  they  have  their  location  in 
space,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how  they  may  be  jarred  into  new 
motions  by  the  impact  of  atoms  cast  off  by  surrounding  objects. 
There  is  nothing  hopelessly  mysterious  in  the  clash  of  material 
particles ;  we  see  something  of  the  kind  going  on  about  us  on  a 
larger  scale  all  the  time.  But  if  we  are  to  be  content  with  this 
view  of  the  process  of  knowing,  we  must  pass  lightly  over  the  very 
significant  statement  that  "  thus  arises  the  knowledge  of  external 
things."  Nothing  exists  save  atoms  and  void  space;  under  which 
of  these  heads  shall  we  subsume  this  "  knowledge  "  ?  or  shall  we, 
perhaps,  make  it  identical  with  the  motions  of  the  atoms  through 
the  space?  And  if  we  drop  the  notion  of  mind-atoms,  and  con- 
fine ourselves  to  the  study  of  nervous  processes  and  those  physical 
events  in  which  they  have  their  inception  and  in  which  they  ter- 
minate, the  case  is  the  same.  What  becomes  of  those  phenomena 
with  which  the  psychologist  supposes  himself  to  be  dealing  ?  What 
becomes  of  sensations,  memories,  thought-processes?  A  whole  world 
of  things  seems  to  be  left  wholly  out  of  account,  ignored  as  though 
it  were  non-existent.  Shall  we  outrage  common  sense  by  insist- 
ing that  these  are  but  another  name  for  the  nervous  processes  them- 
selves, and  hence  do  not  require  independent  investigation  ? 

The  absurdity  of  such  a  position  can  best  be  made  clear  by  the 
use  of  an  illustration.  Let  us  suppose  the  boy,  whose  motions 
have  been  discussed  in  the  preceding  chapter,  to  be  about  to  begin 
his  attack  upon  the  dog.  As  we  have  seen,  boy  and  dog  are  cer- 
tain collocations  of  material  particles  in  certain  space-relations  to 
each  other  and  to  the  rest  of  the  material  world.  They  are  part 
of  the  mechanical  system  of  things.  Every  motion  of  every  particle 
is  foreordained  by  the  law  of  the  whole,  and  could  be  foretold  by 
one  sufficiently  well  informed  and  sufficiently  wise.  To  us,  the 
spectators  of  the  drama,  the  actors  do  not  seem  to  be  such  swarms 
of  minute  elements,  but  Democritus  could  inform  us  that  this  is 


248  Mind  and  Matter 

because  our  senses  are  too  weak  to  see  them  as  they  are.  Suppose 
that  by  some  miracle  this  hindrance  were  removed,  and  that  boy 
and  dog  stood  revealed  to  us  in  their  atomistic  nudity  —  infinitely 
complex,  discontinuous,  each  a  universe  in  which  system  could 
be  traced  within  system,  all  developing  their  countless  series  of 
changes  in  harmony  with  mechanical  laws.  Could  we  see  all  this 
as  it  would  be  open  to  the  eye  of  omniscience,  the  task  of  science, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  merely  physical  science,  would  be  satisfactorily 
completed.  Every  change  in  every  particle  of  matter  and,  hence,  in 
every  collocation  of  particles,  would  be  accounted  for.  We  should 
know  perfectly  why  the  boy  hits  the  dog,  and  why  the  dog  runs 
through  his  series  of  twistings  and  turnings.  Puffed  up  with  such 
knowledge  we  might  feel  inclined  to  despise  the  blind  antipathy 
to  Dr.  Fell  that  remains  incapable  of  justifying  its  existence  by  a 
reference  to  mechanical  causes. 

But  while  we  are  thus  gazing  upon  the  intimate  structure  of 
the  boy  and  the  dog,  we  become  conscious  of  the  fact  that  the 
closest  acquaintance  with  the  machine  does  not  bring  within  our 
view  certain  things  that  we  might  have  expected  to  find  there. 
The  boy  sees  the  dog,  and  sees  him  to  be  yellow.  He  hears  him 
bark.  What  are  these  sensations  of  color  and  sound  ?  What 
have  they  to  do  with  the  mechanism  ?  They  are  certainly  not  a 
part  of  it  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the  word.  The  machine  and 
all  its  workings  can  be  perfectly  well  understood  without  referring 
to  them  at  all. 

To  our  discriminating  eye  the  vibrations  in  the  luminiferous 
ether  and  the  vibrations  in  that  grosser  medium,  the  air,  lie  open 
and  are  numbered.  The  mechanical  changes,  the  translocations  of 
atoms,  which  take  place  in  the  organ  of  sense  —  changes  which  an 
observer  endowed  with  a  vision  less  acute  could  only  subsume 
under  such  concepts  as  chemical  or  "  vital "  —  stand  forth  stripped 
of  their  mystery.  The  subsequent  changes  in  the  sensory  nerves, 
the  rearrangement  of  atoms  and  molecules  in  the  central  nervous 
system,  the  changes  in  the  motor  nerves  and  in  the  muscles,  all 
these  we  follow  step  by  step.  The  chain  of  mechanical  causation 
is  unbroken,  and  it  is  nowhere  necessary  to  turn  aside  from  the 
straight  path  upon  which  we  are  journeying.  Nowhere  do  we  find 
color  or  sound,  or  anything  resembling  color  or  sound.  The  more 
clearly  one  realizes  just  what  is  meant  by  the  world  as  mechanism, 
the  more  clearly  does  one  see  that  it  is  a  world  which  has  in  it  no 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  249 

room  for  a  vast  number  of  things  which  are  plainly  to  be  found  in 
our  experience,  and  the  existence  of  which  can  only  be  overlooked 
by  one  blinded  by  prepossession  in  favor  of  some  philosophical 
theory. 

Upon  the  crudely  unreflective  materialism  which  rather  startled 
the  world  with  the  emphasis  of  its  unmeaning  utterances  half  a 
century  ago  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  comment  to-day.  The  much- 
discussed  statement  that  the  brain  secretes  thought  as  the  liver 
secretes  bile  needs  no  labored  refutation.  To  such  vision  as  we 
are  supposing  ourselves  to  possess,  the  mechanical  structure  and 
functioning  of  each  organ  would  be  plainly  evident.  The  secret- 
ing organ  and  the  secretion  would  in  each  case  be  perceived  to 
be  such  and  such  collocations  of  matter,  having  an  unequivocal 
existence  in  the  material  world  of  things,  and  no  single  atom  or 
molecule  in  either  would  lack  its  definite  place  in  the  mechanism 
of  the  universe. 

The  globule  of  saliva  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  material  world 
as  is  the  salivary  gland.  The  atoms  which  compose  it  have  an 
existence  as  independent  as  the  atoms  which  compose  any  other 
group,  and  they  are  equally  indestructible.  Their  relations  to  the 
atoms  in  every  other  group  are  spatial,  and  all  changes  in  these 
relations  may  be  described  as  motions  in  space.  The  gland  and 
the  secretion  may  be  separated  and  set  at  a  distance  from  each 
other ;  this  does  not  affect  the  existence  of  the  secretion.  The 
gland  may  be  destroyed,  that  is,  the  collocation  of  material  particles 
which  passes  by  that  name  may  be  made  to  undergo  great  change ; 
nevertheless  the  secretion  may  remain  unaffected.  The  relative 
independence  of  gland  and  secretion,  and  the  unmistakable  material 
nature  of  the  latter  are  thrust  unpleasantly  upon  our  attention  by 
the  numberless  threats  and  admonitions  which  the  constituted 
authorities  in  civilized  countries  have  found  it  necessary  to  affix  to 
the  walls  of  waiting  rooms  in  railway  stations,  to  hang  up  in  trains, 
and  to  bring  to  our  notice  in  divers  other  places. 

The  ill-bred  fellow  who  has  been  lounging  in  the  corner  of  the 
railway  carriage  takes  his  salivary  glands  with  him  when  he  steps 
out  of  it;  but  he  leaves  behind  an  unwelcome  reminder  of  his 
former  presence,  which  persists  in  its  independent  being  and 
asserts  its  right  to  a  place  in  the  world  of  matter.  Can  any 
thoughtful  man  seriously  maintain  that  the  color  seen  and  the 
heard  are  related  to  the  brain  of  the  boy,  who  sees  the  dog, 


250  Mind  and  Matter 

in  any  way  analogous  to  this  ?  The  man  who  sat  in  the  corner 
might  have  occupied  himself  during  his  whole  journey  with 
thoughts  of  wholesale  massacre  ;  lie  might  have  called  before  his 
imagination  the  most  hideous  combinations  of  colors;  he  might 
have  hummed  over  in  his  mind  the  most  unmelodious  of  tunes ; 
yet,  on  his  exit,  the  place  might  have  been  taken  contentedly  by  a 
timid  man  with  artistic  tastes.  Of  such  things  as  these  no  trace 
remains,  and  no  one  expects  to  find  a  trace.  Sounds,  colors,  and  a 
whole  world  of  other  things  that  we  may  classify  with  these,  are 
not  collocations  of  matter  which  exist  in  space  side  by  side  with 
certain  other  collocations  of  matter  which  we  call  bodily  organs. 
It  is  only  mental  confusion  that  can  identify  them  with  such. 

Perhaps  some  one  will  be  tempted  to  point  out  once  more  that 
the  functioning  of  the  brain  does  result  in  certain  material 
products  which  can  be  traced  by  the  physiologist.  There  is 
a  destruction  of  tissue  which  must  be  made  good  by  reconstruc- 
tion. This  is,  of  course,  true.  When  the  brain  functions,  there 
are  waste  products  which  pass  into  the  blood  and  are  ultimately 
eliminated  from  the  body  by  other  organs.  But  it  should  be 
noted  that  such  products,  when  they  are  discovered,  are  not 
found  to  be  in  the  least  like  those  things  which  we  have  been 
discussing.  They  are  not  colors,  they  are  not  sounds,  they  are 
not  memories  of  such.  They  are  not  to  be  identified  with  any 
of  those  things  of  which  the  man  was  conscious  while  his  brain 
was  functioning.  The  elements  which  compose  them  formed 
part  of  the  man's  body ;  they  were  jostled  out  of  the  combina- 
tions in  which  they  stood ;  they  were  finally  excreted.  Of  their 
existence  during  the  whole  process  he  has  not  had  the  faintest 
suspicion.  For  identifying  them  with  the  things  of  which  he 
was  conscious  at  the  time  there  seems  to  be  no  excuse. 

Thus  this  vain  talk  of  "  secretions "  may  be  unhesitatingly 
set  aside  when  we  are  considering  such  things  as  the  color  of 
the  dog  as  seen  by  the  boy,  or  the  sound  of  his  bark  as  heard. 
Even  the  Democritean  slurring  over  of  the  existence  of  sensations 
and  of  that  reason  which  can  alone  discern  the  truth  about  the 
atoms  and  their  motions  seems  preferable  to  such  gross  miscon- 
ception. Democritus  recognized  the  existence  of  these  things, 
but  failed  to  find  for  them  a  place  in  his  scheme  of  existence. 
The  secretionist  gives  them  a  place  in  the  system  of  things,  but 
they  cannot  take  that  place  without  ceasing  to  be  what  they  are. 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  251 

He  denies  them  their  own  proper  nature  and  confounds  them 
with  something  else. 

It  may  be  thought  that  it  is  an  excess  of  zeal  to  spend  even 
so  much  time  as  I  have  done  in  the  criticism  of  this  form  of  the 
materialistic  doctrine.  Why  sally  out  in  chase  of  the  dodo,  when 
that  bird  has  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth  ? 

To  this  one  may  answer  that  this  bird  has  not  wholly  disap- 
peared, but  that  specimens  may  still  occasionally  be  met  with  in 
out-of-the-way  corners.  My  own  experience  has  been  that  they 
are  more  apt  to  be  found  in  the  medical  profession  than  elsewhere, 
perhaps  because  that  profession  embraces  a  vast  number  of  men 
who  have  some  acquaintance  with  physiology  and  psychology,  but 
only  a  limited  number  of  whom  can  be  legitimately  expected  to  be 
possessed  of  philosophical  acumen  and  to  be  thoroughly  equipped 
with  accurate  information  upon  matters  physiological  and  psycho- 
logical. 

And  one  may  answer,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  secretion- 
ist's  misconception  is  but  one  of  a  type,  and  it  may  serve  to  throw 
light  upon  a  whole  group  of  errors  to  analyze  the  most  striking 
instance  to  be  found  in  the  group.  A  more  insidious  form  of  the 
misconception  is  often  made  to  lurk  in  the  statement  that  what  is 
somewhat  loosely  called  thought  is  a  "function  "  or  "  activity  "  of 
the  brain,  a  statement  which  may  seem  not  unsatisfactory  to  one 
who  is  ready  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  all  mention  of  secretions.  One 
is  reminded  here  of  the  old  Greek  notion  of  the  soul  as  a  harmony 
of  the  body,  which  notion,  as  readers  of  Plato  will  remember,  was 
sometimes  taken  with  serious  literalness  and  supposed  to  be 
fraught  with  grave  significance. 

But  it  is  never  wise  to  use  a  phrase  without  at  least  an  at- 
tempt to  determine  with  some  accuracy  what  it  really  means. 
What  are  "  functions  "  or  "  activities  "  of  the  brain  ?  To  such  vi- 
sion as  we  are  supposing  ourselves  to  possess,  it  is  quite  clear  what 
the  brain  is.  The  dulness  of  our  sense  has  been  done  away, 
and  we  see,  as  with  the  Democritean  Reason,  an  army  of  atoms 
going  through  its  evolutions  with  mechanical  precision.  It  is 
not  a  mob,  a  mere  rabble.  We  can  trace  in  its  infinite  complex- 
ity relatively  permanent  groupings  in  the  midst  of  incessant 
changes.  Formation  succeeds  formation  ;  the  individual  units 
group  themselves,  divide,  scatter,  and  re-form  into  new  groups. 
A  patient  observation  of  what  takes  place,  and  a  comprehension 


252  Mind  and  Matter 

of  the  mechanical  laws  which  govern  the  actions  of  each,  enable 
us  to  predict  what  groupings  will  appear  upon  the  scene  when  the 
present  arrangement  has  filled  its  moment  and  dropped  into  the 
nothingness  of  things  past. 

These  motions  in  matter,  these  groupings  and  regroupings  of 
atoms,  these  are  the  functions  or  activities  of  the  brain,  in  an 
unequivocal  sense  of  the  words.  They  are  the  only  ones  that 
display  themselves  before  our  eyes,  and,  as  we  have  seen  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  they  are  the  only  ones  needed  by  science  to 
explain  the  whole  series  of  positions  taken,  in  the  material  world, 
by  the  body  with  which  this  brain  is  connected  —  in  the  instance 
above  mentioned,  the  wild  chase  of  the  dog,  the  shouts  of  laughter, 
the  wavings  of  the  stick. 

Shall  we  say  that  the  color  seen  and  the  sound  heard  are  also 
functions  of  the  brain  ?  And  in  this  case  shall  we  regard  them  as 
distinct  and  separate  functions  of  a  quite  different  kind,  or  shall  we 
assume  that  they  are  identical  with  some  of  the  motions  which  we 
see  before  us  ?  Shall  we  say  that  this  particular  clash  of  atoms 
is  the  color  yellow,  and  that  one  is  a  sound?  If  we  assert  that 
such  as  these  are  functions  of  a  quite  different  kind  from  motions, 
we  seem  to  be  stretching  a  familiar  word  to  the  point  of  breaking. 
We  ought  to  recognize  that,  when  we  call  things  quite  different 
by  the  same  name,  we  are  not  justified  in  putting  them  into  the 
same  class,  and  in  assuming  that  the  one  has  been  assigned  its 
place  in  nature  when  the  other  has.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we 
maintain  that  colors  and  sounds  are  identical  with  certain  atomic 
motions,  we  seem  to  be  talking  nonsense.  The  atomic  motions 
we  can  see  plainly  before  us.  As  well  call  a  triangle  an  emo- 
tion of  grief  as  call  this  particular  clash  of  atoms  yellow.  The 
atoms  are  not  yellow  and  their  motions  certainly  are  not.  If  it 
is  an  error  to  confound  a  color  or  a  sound  with  a  material  secre- 
tion, it  is  surely  no  less  of  an  error  to  confound  them  with 
motions  in  matter. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  even  those  who  elect  to  speak  of  thought 
as  a  function  of  the  brain  do  not  exactly  identify  colors  and 
sounds  as  seen  and  heard  with  motions  in  the  constituents  of 
the  brain.  They  do  not  conceive  those  motions  to  be  colored 
or  resonant.  They  accept  their  own  phrase  loosely,  and  when 
cross-questioned  usually  have  something  to  say  about  double- 
faced  entities,  the  outside  and  the  inside  of  things,  etc.  With 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  253 

these  modifications  of  their  doctrine  we  are  not  here  concerned; 
what  concerns  us  is  the  fact  that  any  doctrine  which  maintains 
that  science  has  to  do  only  with  matter  in  motion  removes  from 
the  province  of  science  many  things  which  common  sense  and 
common  experience  insist  upon  as  really  existing.  If  science 
is  to  be  thus  circumscribed,  then  scientific  knowledge  carried 
to  its  extremest  limit  must  wholly  ignore  much  that  we  find  in 
our  experience,  so  much,  indeed,  that,  were  it  dropped  out 
altogether,  we  should  not  recognize  our  experience  as  our  ex- 
perience at  all. 

The  more  clearly  one  recognizes,  therefore,  just  what  is  meant 
by  the  mechanism  of  nature,  the  more  clearly  one  sees  that  there 
is  no  room  in  it  for  such  things  as  color  and  sound  as  seen 
and  heard.  This  world  of  mechanism  is,  indeed,  the  world  of 
the  primary  qualities  of  matter  dwelt  upon  by  John  Locke 
in  his  "Essay."  From  it  all  those  elements  of  our  experi- 
ence which  are  sometimes  loosely  called  the  secondary  qualities 
of  matter  are  to  be  carefully  excluded.  Colors,  sounds,  odors, 
etc.,  are  not,  as  Locke  expressly  states,  qualities  of  matter  at 
all,  and  he  insists  that  they  do  not  resemble  them.  That  some- 
thing in  matter  must  correspond  to  them,  he  regards  as  self- 
evident,  and  this  something  he  calls  the  secondary  qualities  of 
matter.  But  he  defines  these  secondary  qualities  as  powers 
which  objects  possess  of  arousing  sensations  in  us  by  means  of 
their  primary  qualities.  Thus,  in  the  world  of  matter,  there  is  no 
real  distinction  between  primary  qualities  and  secondary.  The 
secondary  are  seen  to  be  nothing  other  than  the  primary  — 
they  are  configurations  of,  or  motions  in,  matter;  those  partic- 
ular motions  which  we  connect  with,  and  too  often  confound 
with,  the  hearing  of  sounds  or  the  seeing  of  colors.  That  such 
configurations  and  motions  should  not  be  confused  with  the 
sounds  heard  or  the  colors  seen  Locke  saw  clearly.  He  made 
the  latter  effects  of  the  former,  but  he  had  better  sense  than  to 
suppose  the  two  classes  of  things  to  be  identical.1 

The  modern  man,  who  has  had  the  advantage  of  reading  what 
men  have  written  since  touching  the  nature  of  our  conception  of 
matter,  ought  to  be  in  still  less  danger  of  falling  into  such  confu- 
sions. The  world  of  matter  and  motion  is  a  world  given  in  terms 
of  touch  and  movement  sensations.  It  is  a  vast  system  built  up 
1  Book  II,  Chapter  VIII. 


254  Mind  and  Matter 

out  of  elements  which  have  been  selected  from  our  experience 
as  a  whole,  but  which  by  no  means  exhaust  its  rich  diversity. 
It  is  a  mere  skeleton,  a  framework  and  nothing  more.  When  it 
is  recognized  what  the  material  world  is  in  its  ultimate  constitu- 
ents —  I  speak  psychologically  and  not  physically  —  it  is  impos- 
sible to  think  that  nothing  exists  save  matter  and  motion.  This  is 
seen  to  be  tantamount  to  the  assertion  that  color  sensations  are 
identical  with  sensations  of  quite  another  class,  which  is  palpably 
absurd.1  To  regard  as  identical  classes  of  experiences  which  are 
evidently  dissimilar  is  inexcusable,  and  to  dismiss  as  non-existent 
all  classes  of  sensations  except  those  which  fit  into  a  particular 
series,  arbitrarily  narrows  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  existence  "  to 
a  special  use.  Both  in  science  and  in  common  life  we  constantly 
speak  of  colors,  sounds,  and  odors.  We  mean  something  when 
we  do  so.  To  declare  such  things  to  be  non-existent  is  palpably 
contrary  to  common  sense  and  to  the  accepted  usages  of  speech. 

Thus  we  see  that  it  is  impossible  for  reflection  to  rest  content 
with  the  Democritean  world  of  atoms  and  void  space,  and  to  ask 
no  questions  touching  those  other  things  which  Democritus  recog- 
nizes but  to  which  he  explicitly  denies  a  place  in  the  system  of 
things.  It  is  impossible  to  be  satisfied  with  a  mechanical  theory 
of  the  universe,  however  carefully  elaborated  by  modern  science, 
which  simply  ignores  a  large  part  of  our  experience,  and  regards 
its  task  as  completed  when  it  has  reduced  to  order  the  remainder. 
One  is  constantly  reminded  that  something  remains  to  be  explained. 
In  common  life  we  hear  little  of  the  atomic  structure  of  things, 
and  much  of  the  color,  the  odor,  the  taste,  of  the  apple  or  the 
peach.  We  speak  of  our  wine  as  white  or  red,  as  sweet  or  sour. 
A  bruised  finger  aches,  and  all  notion  of  mechanism  is  driven  from 
our  thought  by  its  maddening  pulsation.  These  things  stand  in 
the  foreground  of  our  experience  ;  to  overlook  them  seems  absurd. 
To  think  of  the  world  as  composed  exclusively  of  atoms  in  motion, 
one  must  banish  the  world,  sit  quietly  in  the  dim  light  of  one's 
study,  glue  one's  eyes  to  the  paper,  and  write  oneself  gradually 
into  a  frame  of  mind  in  which  the  abstractions  of  mechanics  seem 

1  If  any  one  chooses  to  distinguish  between  the  material  world  "  as  given  in  terms 
of  touch  and  movement  sensation"  and  the  real  material  world  as  it  is,  distinct 
from  all  sensation,  it  does  not  affect  the  question.  It  only  emphasizes  the  absurdity 
of  overlooking  the  existence  of  the  "subjective."  I  must  ask  my  reader  to  wait 
until  he  has  read  Chapter  XXIII  before  coming  to  a  final  decision  regarding  my 
use  of  the  word  "sensation." 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  255 

the  only  realities.  The  first  tap  at  the  door,  the  first  note  of  the 
finch  in  the  tree  outside,  may  easily  remind  one  that  the  world  is 
really  painted  in  colors,  and  is  not  a  monotony  of  black  and  white. 

It  is  the  same  when  one  talks  with  men  of  science,  or  reads  an 
account  of  their  experiments.  We  watch  the  chemist  pour  one 
colorless  liquid  into  another.  He  has  told  us  that  the  "  resulting 
color  "  will  be  this  or  that,  and  his  prediction  seems  to  have  been 
justified.  The  physiologist  gives  us  a  brief  sketch  of  the  anatomy 
of  the  eye  and  of  the  ear.  He  traces  as  well  as  he  can  their  con- 
nections with  the  various  parts  of  the  brain.  He  then  launches 
out  into  a  far  more  extended  discussion  of  sensations  of  color 
and  sound  —  not  brain-changes,  but  sensations  of  color  and  sound 
—  as  though  such  things  really  existed,  were  worthy  of  being 
discussed  at  prodigious  length,  and  were  not  so  cut  off  from  molec- 
ular changes  in  the  substance  of  the  brain  as  to  make  it  impossible 
to  pass  from  the  one  to  the  other. 

As  for  the  psychologist,  whatever  may  be  his  enthusiasm  for 
mechanism,  and  however  closely  he  may  ally  himself  to  the  student 
of  physical  science,  he  simply  cannot  speak  at  all  without  remind- 
ing us  that  there  are  other  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  motions 
in  matter,  than  the  clash  of  the  Democritean  atoms.  If  we  ex- 
punge from  his  pages  all  reference  to  what  does  not  form  part 
of  the  mechanism  we  have  been  discussing,  we  leave  most  of  them 
as  white  as  when  they  went  into  the  hands  of  the  printer.  Even 
the  headings  of  the  chapters  are  gone,  and  the  title  of  the  volume 
has  become  an  empty  sound.  There  remain  some  descriptions  of 
apparatus,  and  an  outline  of  the  anatomy  and  physiology  of  the 
nervous  system,  the  latter  a  mere  shadow  of  its  usual  self  as  we 
find  it  set  forth  in  the  works  of  the  physiologists. 

Very  likely  it  will  be  objected  that  this  devastation  which  is 
wrought  in  the  sciences  by  insisting  that  they  shall  omit  all 
reference  to  what  cannot  take  its  place  in  the  world  of  matter 
and  motion,  has  its  origin  in  the  fact  that  the  sciences  are  as  yet 
so  imperfect. 

A  science  which  does  not  know  the  actual  changes  which  are 
taking  place  in  the  mechanism  of  the  universe,  must,  if  it  is  to  talk 
at  all,  be  allowed  to  talk  about  something  else.  Yet  he  who  thus 
speaks  may  be  conscious  of  the  fact  that,  did  he  know  more,  he 
might  speak  in  quite  another  way.  The  pouring  of  one  liquid 
into  another  is  a  mechanical  change.  The  chemical  combinations 


256  Mind  and  Matter 

which  result  may  also  be  regarded  as  mechanical  changes.  Such 
changes,  which,  of  course,  do  not  lie  open  to  direct  inspection,  may 
be  assigned  their  place  in  the  cosmic  series  of  causes  and  effects. 
One  may  speak  of  the  "  resulting  color  "  without  seriously  intending 
to  maintain  that  the  color  seen  has  its  place  in  the  series.  It  may 
be  taken  as  merely  representative  of  what  has  such  a  place,  as 
a  convenient  handle  by  which  to  take  up  an  occurrence  which  can- 
not readily  be  laid  hold  of  in  some  better  way.  It  is  permissible 
to  refer  to  "  Monsieur  Chose,"  when  we  do  not  know  the  man's  real 
name. 

Similarly,  our  desolating  ignorance  of  the  intimate  structure  of 
the  brain  and  of  the  changes  which  take  place  in  it,  may  force  the 
physiologist  and  the  psychologist  to  talk  of  colors,  sounds,  odors, 
tastes,  pleasures,  pains,  memory-images,  concepts,  and  what  not; 
but  if  they  knew  more  of  the  mechanism  of  the  human  body,  could 
they  not  describe  all  its  activities  without  any  reference  to  such 
things  as  these  at  all?  Were  science  more  advanced,  could  there 
not  be  a  physiology,  and  even  a  psychology,  that  made  no  reference 
to  such?  Could  not  these  sciences  study  man  as  a  mechanism,  and 
content  themselves  with  the  knowledge  of  all  that  this  mechanism 
could  possibly  do  ?  Certainly,  if  the  mechanical  view  of  the  mate- 
rial universe  is  a  true  one,  it  is  not  permissible  to  follow  the  chain 
of  mechanical  causes  a  little  way,  abandon  it  at  a  certain  point, 
and  then  return  to  it  again,  except  as  a  last  resort  and  a  temporary 
expedient.  One  may  deplore  this  expedient  even  while  availing 
oneself  of  it. 

To  the  objection  that  the  chain  of  mechanical  causes  and  effects 
could,  at  a  more  advanced  stage  of  science,  be  rendered  more  evi- 
dently complete,  one  need  not  care  to  bring  an  answer.  I  have 
above  merely  wished  to  point  out  the  fact  that,  in  the  present  state 
of  the  sciences,  it  is  especially  inexcusable  to  overlook  the  existence 
of  all  save  the  Democritean  atoms  and  their  motions,  since  that 
existence  is  forced  upon  one's  attention  at  every  turn. 

Nor  is  it  without  significance  that  it  is  possible,  when  we  find 
the  series  of  mechanical  causes  broken  by  our  ignorance,  to  piece 
out  its  deficiencies  by  turning  to  something  else.  Certain  things 
cannot  be  made  to  stand  as  representatives  of  certain  others  unless 
there  be  some  true  relation  between  the  two  classes. 

The  importance  of  this  relation  is  sufficiently  evident,  for  it 
is  possible  for  the  plain  man  to  interpolate  into  his  series  of  me- 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  257 

chanical  causes  such  things  as  sensations,  which  have  no  place  in 
the  above-described  mechanical  order,  and  yet  to  infer  with  a  good 
deal  of  accuracy  what  occurrences  will  or  will  not  find  a  place  in 
the  world  of  his  experiences.  It  seems  to  him  madness  to  deny 
that  sensations  and  volitions  can  be  the  results  and  the  causes 
of  changes  iii  the  material  world.  The  puncture  caused  by  the 
mosquito  gives  rise  to  the  sensation  of  itching,  and  this  sensa- 
tion leads  to  his  scratching  the  spot  attacked.  The  fall  of  the 
apple  from  the  tree  causes  in  him  certain  visual  sensations,  and 
these  visual  sensations  are  the  cause  of  his  desiring  to  possess  the 
apple,  which  desire  sets  his  body  in  motion  and  leads  to  the 
appropriation  of  the  fruit.  The  descent  of  the  hammer  wounds 
his  finger ;  this  causes  pain  ;  the  pain  causes  facial  contortion  and 
the  insertion  of  the  wounded  member  into  his  mouth.  The  fact 
that  such  chains  of  antecedents  and  consequents  do  present  them- 
selves within  his  experience,  no  man  can  with  justice  deny.  He 
assumes  them  to  be  a  series  of  causes  and  effects,  and  he  re- 
gards it  as  unnecessary  to  isolate  and  set  apart  the  merely  mate- 
rial, even  if  the  thought  of  doing  so  ever  crosses  his  mind. 

The  man  of  science  is  apt  to  speak  with  rather  more  hesitation, 
even  when  he  makes  no  deliberate  attempt  to  view  things  with  the 
eye  of  the  philosopher.  The  chemist  may  talk  of  a  "  resultant 
color,"  and  may  even  admit  frankly  that  he  thinks  of  color  as  an 
effect  of  physical  causes,  but  we  do  not  find  him  ready  to  admit 
that  color  can  in  any  true  sense  be  a  cause  of  physical  changes. 
The  physiologist  tells  us  that  a  common  effect  of  the  arrival  at  the 
central  nervous  system  of  impulses  passing  along  afferent  nerves  is 
a  change  in  consciousness,  or  a  sensation.1  He  also  tells  us  that 
choice  may  be  determined  in  some  cases  by  intelligence,2  and  that 
in  an  ordinary  voluntary  movement  an  intelligent  consciousness  is 
an  essential  element.3  He  assures  us,  on  the  other  hand,  that, 
looking  at  the  matter  from  a  purely  physiological  point  of  view, 
"the  real  difference  between  an  automatic  act  and  a  voluntary  act 
is  that  the  chain  of  physiological  events  between  the  act  and  its 
physiological  cause  is  in  the  one  case  short  and  simple,  in  the 
other  long  and  complex."4  Psychologists  divide  themselves  into 
classes ;  the  one  class  falling  in  with  the  opinion  of  the  plain 
man,  and  the  other  regarding  the  series  of  mechanical  causes  as 

1  Foster,  "  Physiology,"  6th  ed.,  Ill,  pp.  850,  851. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  909.  »  Ibid.,  p.  10G8.  *  Ibid.,  p.  1004. 

s 


258  Mind  and  Matter 

unbroken.  One  cannot  claim  the  authority  of  psychologists  as  a 
class  for  either  doctrine.  Finally,  the  logician  tells  us  that  it  is 
the  great  aim  of  science  to  trace  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect 
which  obtain  in  nature,  but  we  remark  the  fact  that  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  illustrate  the  inductive  methods  of  scientific  research 
by  a  description  of  investigations  into  the  "  causes  "  of  the  irides- 
cent colors  on  mother-of-pearl,  or  on  thin  plates  and  films.1  We 
ask  at  once,  Does  the  logician  mean  to  maintain  that  colors  have 
their  place  in  the  natural  order  of  causes  and  effects  ?  Can  they 
be  the  result  of  mechanical  causes?  Logicians  speak  as  though 
they  could,  and  they  treat  them  accordingly. 

Of  course,  the  adherent  of  the  doctrine  that  the  material  world 
is  a  perfect  mechanism  will  regard  those  whom  I  have  above  cited 
as  in  need  of  enlightenment.  He  will  maintain  that  the  opinions 
of  the  plain  man  must  not  be  uncritically  accepted  as  true ;  and 
will  point  out  that  one  may  be  a  pretty  good  chemist,  physiologist, 
psychologist,  or  logician,  without  on  that  account  being  much  of  a 
philosopher.  He  will,  moreover,  call  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in 
special  investigations  of  all  sorts,  it  is  permissible  to  use  language 
in  a  way  which  is  not  strictly  correct,  provided  that  such  a  use  of 
words  serves  our  convenience  and  does  not  give  rise  to  unavoidable 
misconception ;  and  he  will  remind  us  that  one  may  reason  well 
without  being  fully  conscious  of  the  true  significance  of  the  terms 
employed  in  one's  reasonings.  Those  who  enjoy  the  clearest  vision, 
he  will  insist,  and  who  best  understand  the  course  of  the  develop- 
ment which  science  is  undergoing,  will  be  in  the  least  danger  of 
falling  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  the  cosmic  mechanism 
really  needs  to  be  patched  with  such  unsubstantial  stuff  as  colors 
or  odors,  pleasures,  pains,  or  memory-images. 

But  when  he  has  said  all  this,  he  ought  frankly  to  admit  the 
significance  of  the  fact,  that  such  widespread  error  may  exist 
without  either  in  common  life  or  in  science  revealing  itself  to 
be  error  by  undeniably  disastrous  consequences.  This  can  only 
mean  that  those  things  which  he  has  set  aside  as  finding  no  place 
in  the  cosmic  mechanism  are,  after  all,  intimately  related  to  that 
mechanism.  Where  our  knowledge  of  the  mechanism  is  defective, 
it  may  be  more  or  less  satisfactorily  pieced  out  by  their  aid,  as  we 
have  seen. 

And  it  is  quite  clear  that  were  our  knowledge  of  the  world  of 
1  Jevoiis,  "  The  Principles  of  Science,"  Chapter  XIX,  §  2. 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  259 

matter  and  motion  so  complete  as  to  make  it  quite  unnecessary  to 
borrow  such  patches,  this  would  not  in  the  least  imply  that  the 
world  of  sounds,  colors,  tastes,  odors,  and  all  the  rest,  would  cease 
to  exist  and  to  he  related  to  the  world  of  matter  and  motion.  In 
certain  special  investigations  it  would,  it  is  true,  be  unnecessary 
to  refer  to  such  things,  whereas  this  reference  is  at  present  un- 
avoidable. But  to  limit  the  sphere  of  science  to  such  investiga- 
tions seems  absurd.  It  is  surely  not  the  whole  duty  of  man  to  fix 
his  attention  upon  the  ordering  of  sensations  of  touch  and  move- 
ment into  a  satisfactory  mechanical  system,  to  the  complete  neglect 
of  experiences  of  every  other  sort.  That  these  other  experiences 
do  not  defy  all  attempts  at  arrangement  is  sufficiently  clear  from 
what  has  been  said  above.  It  seems,  then,  as  though  it  ought  to 
be  the  task  of  science,  in  the  broad  sense  of  that  word,  to  reduce 
the  whole  of  our  experience,  and  not  merely  a  part  of  it,  to  some 
sort  of  system.  Anything  less  results  in  the  mutilation,  not  the 
explanation,  of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

But  how  attain  to  such  a  view  of  the  whole  of  our  experiences 
as  an  interrelated  system  ?  Surely  one  may  sympathize  with  the 
Democritean,  and  admit  that  he  is  driven  to  his  position  by  encoun- 
tering what  seems  a  very  real  difficulty.  Once  admit  that  the 
material  world  is  a  perfect  mechanism,  and  there  appears  to  be  no 
bridge  by  which  one  can  pass  from  it  to  another  world  and  back 
again.  To  the  plain  man  the  difficulty  does  not  exist,  for  his  real 
world  is  a  composite  thing  in  which  material  and  non-material  ele- 
ments are  patched  together  to  form  what  cannot  exactly  be  called 
a  mechanism,  and  yet  resembles  one  in  spots.  To  the  nature  of 
the  connections  between  its  different  and  discrepant  elements 
he  has  given  little  thought ;  that  they  are  somehow  connected  is 
enough  for  him. 

But  he  who  desires  to  think  clearly  can  scarcely  rest  content 
with  a  conception  which  seems  to  remain  satisfactory  only  so  long 
as  it  remains  vague  and  obscure.  He  asks  how  he  is  to  conceive 
this  connection  of  the  material  and  the  non-material,  and  what  is 
meant  by  their  interaction.  The  more  he  thinks  about  the  thing, 
the  more  it  seems  to  him  impossible  that  motions  in  matter  should 
have  as  their  causes  anything  save  motions  in  matter.  And  yet, 
if  this  be  so,  what  shall  one  do  with  colors,  sounds,  odors,  and  the 
rest?  What  shall  one  do  with  the  subjective,  with  mind?  Has 
it  a  place  in  the  system  of  things,  or  has  it  not?  As  the  "system 


260  Mind  and  Matter 

of  things  "  is  pretty  sure  to  mean,  to  one  who  has  busied  one- 
self chiefly  with  physical  science,  the  cosmic  mechanism,  an  exclu- 
sion from  the  latter  may  seem  almost  tantamount  to  a  denial  of 
existence. 

Such  a  denial  is  manifestly  unjustifiable,  and  can  scarcely  be 
made  by  a  man  with  open  eyes  ;  but  one  may  glide  over  the  subject 
lightly,  as  the  atomists  appear  to  have  done,  and  discourse  chiefly 
of  the  material.  Or  one  may  half  face  the  question,  and  justify 
one's  exclusive  occupation  with  the  material  by  the  assertion  that 
thought  is  a  bodily  secretion,  an  assertion  which  we  have  seen  to 
be  a  foolish  one,  and  one  which  testifies  rather  to  a  man's  respect 
for  the  mechanical  order  of  things  than  to  his  powers  of  reflection. 
Finally,  one  may  regard  mental  phenomena  as  the  "  inside "  of 
molecular  change,  or  call  matter  a  "  double-faced "  entity,  thus 
seeming  to  connect  things  of  divers  kinds  which  do  not  seem 
capable  of  being  built,  strictly  speaking,  into  the  one  system. 

Just  how  much  one  may  mean  to  say,  when  one  uses  such 
expressions,  must  depend  upon  one's  clearness  of  vision.  They 
may  only  indicate  a  vague  recognition  of  the  existence  of  the 
world  ignored  by  the  Democritean,  coupled  with  the  desire  to 
incorporate  it  somewhat  equivocally  in  the  world  of  matter  in 
motion.  They  may,  on  the  other  hand,  mean  more,  and  they 
deserve  careful  analysis.  But  the  mere  fact  that  one  is  tempted 
to  use  them  is  a  sufficient  indication  of  a  recognition  of  the  futility 
of  attempting  to  limit  the  sphere  of  science  to  a  description  of  the 
changes  which  take  place  in  the  material  universe.  It  is  an  admis- 
sion that  something  exists  save  matter  and  motion,  and  a  doctrine 
that  makes  this  admission  has  advanced  beyond  the  standpoint  of 
pure  materialism. 

It  may,  it  is  true,  remain  materialistic  in  feeling,  and  the 
amount  of  attention  it  bestows  upon  the  subjective  elements  of 
experience  may  be  quite  inadequate.  Still,  it  should  be  given 
credit  for  a  truth  which  it  sees  but  dimly.  If  it  sees  it  at  all,  it 
cannot  conscientiously  object  to  the  most  strenuous  efforts  to  throw 
light  upon  this  dark  corner  in  human  knowledge.  It  cannot,  in 
other  words,  frown  upon  the  labors  of  the  metaphysician,  unless 
this  worthy  makes  it  quite  plain  that  he  assumes  his  premises  with- 
out proper  precautions,  uses  words  and  phrases  without  having 
carefully  looked  into  their  significance,  draws  conclusions  without 
clearly  recognizing  what  constitutes  proof,  or  does  any  of  those 


The  Insufficiency  of  Materialism  261 

things  that  have  so  frequently  made  the  word  "  metaphysician " 
stink  in  the  nostrils  of  the  prudent  and  the  practical  man. 

His  task  is  not  an  imaginary  one.  It  is  set  for  him  by  the 
nature  of  our  experience.  Even  Democritus  unconsciously  in- 
cites him  to  set  about  its  accomplishment,  in  that  he  delivers 
into  his  hands  certain  things  which  unquestionably  exist,  in  some 
sense  of  that  word,  and  yet  for  which  no  place  is  provided  in  the 
world  of  existing  things. 


CHAPTER   XVII 
THE  ATOMIC   SELF 

SCIENCE  has  long  been  at  work  building  up  the  conception  of 
the  material  world  as  a  mechanical  system  of  things.  Many 
hands  have  labored  to  rear  the  edifice,  many  still  labor,  and  yet 
the  pile  has  scarcely  risen  above  its  foundations.  Only  the  eye 
of  faith  can  see  its  towers  and  pinnacles  rising  in  stately  mag- 
nificence and  dwell  with  pleasure  upon  the  unity  and  harmony 
of  the  colossal  structure.  Those  who  are  most  deeply  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  science,  and  who  enjoy  that  breadth  of  vision 
denied  to  the  myopic  eye  of  the  mere  specialist,  are  apt  to  exer- 
cise this  faith  and  to  see  the  world  as  a  perfect  mechanism, 
while  frankly  admitting  that  it  is  quite  beyond  the  power  of 
science  to  prove  it  to  be  such.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
those,  and  among  them  men  of  great  scientific  eminence,  who 
do  not  believe  that  this  faith  rests  upon  a  sure  foundation.  The 
world  of  matter,  they  maintain,  will  not  be  proved  to  be  a  perfect 
mechanism,  because  it  is  not  such. 

But,  whatever  view  we  may  take  of  the  world  of  matter,  how- 
ever independent  we  may  conceive  it  to  be,  we  are  nevertheless 
forced  to  recognize  the  existence  of  a  realm  of  minds.  The  man 
who  insists  that  nothing  exists  save  matter  is  foolish  —  about  as 
foolish  as  the  man  who  insists  that  nothing  exists  save  mind. 
The  plain  man  stands  between  the  two  and  finds  himself  in  a 
composite  world  in  which  things  material  and  things  mental  play 
their  proper  role  without  crowding  each  other  out  of  existence. 
That  the  chair  upon  which  he  sits,  the  table  at  which  he  writes, 
the  pen  which  he  holds,  are  material  things,  it  seems  to  him 
trivial  to  doubt.  That  there  is  such  a  thing  as  mechanism  he 
can  prove  by  pulling  out  his  watch.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
he  that  pulled  out  the  watch,  a  thing  that  can  feel,  think,  re- 
member, will  —  in  short,  a  mind.  And  he  cannot  conceive  any 
man  in  his  senses  to  come  seriously  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
alone  possesses  a  mind. 

262 


The  Atomic  Self  263 

That  he  is  right  in  maintaining  the  distinction  between  mat- 
ter and  mind  and  in  holding  to  the  existence  of  both,  careful 
analysis  will  only  succeed  in  making  more  certain.  The  phi- 
losopher who  denies  his  position  may  see  some  truth  that  he 
does  not  see,  but  his  denial  rests  upon  an  imperfect  apprehension 
of  the  truth.  We  have  on  our  hands  a  world  of  matter  and  a 
realm  of  minds  ;  neither  can  be  declared  non-existent ;  the  only 
question  is,  What  shall  we  do  with  the  two  ?  I  have  said  that,  to 
the  plain  man,  the  difficulty  does  not  appear  to  be  a  serious  one, 
because  he  builds  the  two  into  one  system,  or,  at  least,  into  some- 
thing resembling  a  system.  He  treats  minds  very  much  as  if 
they  were  material  atoms  and  could  influence  the  latter  as  these 
influence  each  other.  But  to  the  man  who  has  come  to  look 
upon  the  material  world  as  a  perfect  mechanism  the  problem  is 
a  far  more  serious  one,  for  such  a  conception  of  the  interaction 
of  mind  and  matter  as  the  above  seems  to  make  havoc  of  the 
notion  of  mechanism. 

So  serious  is  the  difficulty  that  some  of  those  whose  acuteness 
and  whose  learning  are  undisputed  have  come  back  from  a  study 
of  what  many  philosophers  have  had  to  say  touching  the  problem, 
with  a  disposition  to  rest  content  with  the  position  of  the  plain 
man  as  being,  on  the  whole,  the  most  satisfactory.  The  plain 
man  appears  to  give  a  plain  answer  to  the  question,  and  one  not 
out  of  harmony  with  our  common  experience  of  things.  Why  not 
accept  it  and  let  it  go  at  that?  The  position  seems  by  no  means 
an  unreasonable  one,  at  first  sight,  at  least.  If,  in  taking  it,  one 
is  compelled  to  deny  the  assertion  of  certain  persons  that  the 
material  world  is  a  perfect  mechanism,  it  is  easy  to  point  out  that 
these  persons  can  give  no  adequate  proof  of  their  assertion  and 
to  hold  that  they  may  very  well  be  in  the  wrong. 

But  it  is  evidently  unwise  to  adopt  a  position  without  making 
a  careful  examination  into  all  that  that  implies.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  such  an  examination  will  reveal  that  one  has  passed 
from  bad  to  worse  in  abandoning  philosophy  for  common  sense. 
Of  course,  one  cannot  expect  the  plain  man  to  realize  clearly  all 
that  his  doctrine  implies.  We  must,  hence,  try  to  make  clear  to 
ourselves  what  he  does  believe,  and  then  judge  whether  such 
beliefs  with  their  implications  are  what  we  should  elect  to  adopt 
as  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  relation  between 
matter  and  mind. 


264  Mind  and  Matter 

Here  I  should  premise,  in  the  first  place,  that  I  lay  myself 
open  to  easy  criticism  in  trying  to  make  clear  what  is  in  its  nature 
vague  and  fluctuating.  A  man  may  hold  a  thing  in  mind  so 
dimly  and  vaguely  that  he  may  fail  to  recognize  any  clear  thought 
whatever  as  the  thing  he  had  in  mind,  and  may  resent  having  it 
attributed  to  him  as  his  own.  Moreover,  the  plain  man  is  not 
one,  but  many,  and  although  he  may,  for  certain  purposes,  be 
taken  generically,  he  presents  specific  differences  which  are  not 
without  their  significance. 

I  should  premise,  in  the  second  place,  that  by  the  plain  man  I 
do  not  mean  the  very  plain  man,  but  the  man  who  has  some 
opinions,  at  least,  on  the  subject  of  mind  and  matter.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  he  has  not  gathered  his  opinions  independently  from 
his  own  experience.  Such  opinions  never  are  gathered  indepen- 
dently. They  exude  from  old  philosophies ;  they  are  absorbed  into 
theological  and  ethical  systems ;  they  leave  their  traces  upon 
language  and  literature  ;  they  are  taken  up  again,  worked  over, 
and  incorporated  into  text-books  for  the  instruction  of  young  men; 
they  become  a  part  of  the  common  thought  of  the  race,  and  in 
the  mind  of  every  man  of  a  moderate  degree  of  culture  they  find 
a  lodgment  as  part  of  that  heritage  from  the  past  which  he  has 
accepted  as  he  has  accepted  his  social  prejudices  and  his  elemen- 
tary notions  of  rights  and  duties.  It  may  seem  to  a  man  that  he 
has  direct  evidence  in  his  own  experience  that  such  opinions  are 
true.  He  should  remember  that  it  also  seems  to  him  that  he  has 
direct  evidence  that  he  does  his  thinking  with  his  head,  and  not 
with  some  other  part  of  his  body.  Yet  it  took  the  race  a  long 
time  to  discover  the  true  significance  of  the  brain  in  the  animal 
economy,  and  many  generations  of  men  lived  and  died  without 
being  impressed  with  this  direct  evidence  at  all. 

We  may,  hence,  regard  the  opinions  of  the  plain  man  on  such 
subjects  as  the  echoes  of  past  philosophies  ;  echoes  which  he  takes 
for  the  voice  of  truth,  and  which  seem  to  him  to  be  just  interpreta- 
tions of  what  is  given  in  his  experience.  If  we  go  back  to  these 
philosophies,  we  shall  often  find  labored  attempts  to  make  reason- 
ably clear  what  he  is  content  to  leave  wholly  vague.  It  may, 
consequently,  be  objected  that  any  attempt  to  state  clearly  the 
opinions  of  the  plain  man  on  the  subject  of  mind  arid  matter  and 
their  relation  to  each  other  must  result  in  setting  these  opinions 
aside  and  treating,  instead,  of  those  philosophical  doctrines  in 
which  they  have  had  their  origin. 


The  Atomic  Self  265 

The  objection  is  not  without  force,  and  yet  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  one  can  make  clear  what  a  man  believes  dimly  and  vaguely 
in  any  other  way  than  by  setting  forth  what  his  words  would 
mean  to  him  did  he  see  things  under  a  light  less  dim  and  un- 
certain, or  what  they  have  meant  to  others  more  given  to  the 
habit  of  reflection.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  discuss  a  man's 
opinions,  if  it  is  understood  from  the  outset  that  the  discussion 
must  leave  the  whole  subject  as  vague  as  it  was  before.  If  any 
plain  man  feels  aggrieved  at  my  attributing  to  him  doctrines 
which  he  is  not  conscious  of  holding,  I  beg  him  to  assume  that 
my  words  have  reference  to  another  and  not  to  him  individually. 
An  experience,  extending  over  a  considerable  number  of  years, 
with  successive  classes  of  college  students  representing,  on  the 
whole,  the  more  cultivated  classes  in  the  community,  has  con- 
firmed me  in  the  opinion  that  there  are  certain  philosophical  tenets 
touching  the  nature  of  the  mind  held  with  a  good  deal  of  unanimity 
even  by  those  who  have  done  no  reading  in  the  works  of  the 
philosophers,  and  have  no  idea  of  the  original  sources  of  the 
doctrines  to  which  they  hold.  They  are  comprehended  vaguely ; 
those  who  maintain  them  are  often  thrown  into  confusion  by  the 
first  objection  urged  against  any  or  all  of  them ;  but  they  are 
nevertheless  held  to  with  a  good  deal  of  tenacity.  These  tenets 
I  take  the  liberty  of  calling  a  part  of  the  philosophy  of  the  plain 
man.  Under  this  heading  I  include  the  following  beliefs:  — 

1.  That  the  mind  is  in  some  sense  in  the  body. 

2.  That  it  acts  and  reacts  with  matter. 

3.  That  it  is  a  substance  with  attributes. 

4.  That  it  is  non-extended  and  immaterial. 

In  these  statements  there  is  nothing  that  strikes  the  average 
man  as  absurd  or  incredible.  Taken  together  they  describe  what 
may  fairly  be  called  the  atomic  self,  that  is,  the  self  or  mind  vaguely 
conceived  after  the  analogy  of  a  material  atom.  It  is  true  that  the 
thing  is  expressly  affirmed  to  be  immaterial,  but  that  only  means 
that  the  analogy  is  recognized  to  be  somewhat  imperfect. 

But  one's  satisfaction  with  such  statements  as  these  can  only 
endure  so  long  as  one  does  not  subject  them  to  careful  scrutiny 
and  ask  after  their  precise  meaning.  In  what  sense  can  the  mind 
be  regarded  as  in  the  body  ?  and  what  is  intended  by  the  statement 
that  it  acts  and  reacts  with  matter  ? 

Let  us  ask  the  plain  man  to  look  at  the  boy  chasing  the  dog, 


266  Mind  and  Matter 

whom  I  have  discussed  in  an  earlier  chapter,1  with  the  sharpness  of 
vision  there  supposed  possible.  What  does  he  see  ?  He  sees  an 
enormously  complicated  system  of  material  atoms  changing  their 
space-relations  to  each  other  unceasingly,  and  in  such  changes 
obeying  mechanical  laws.  The  whole  system  of  atoms  constitutes 
what  we  call  the  boy's  body.  Each  atom  is  plainly  and  unequivo- 
cally in  the  body,  for  it  is  clearly  a  member  of  the  group,  and  stands 
in  such  and  such  space-relations  to  the  other  members.  The  word 
"in"  has  no  doubtful  meaning  when  one  is  speaking  of  material 
things.  My  papers  are  in  my  desk,  that  is,  they  occupy  certain 
definite  portions  of  space,  and  the  wood  which  composes  the  desk 
occupies  certain  other  portions  on  this  side  and  on  that.  My  body 
is  in  this  room,  that  is,  it  occupies  a  position  between  the  walls, 
can  by  moving  in  this  direction  touch  one  of  them,  and  by  moving 
in  that,  touch  another.  An  analysis  of  the  conceptions  of  matter 
and  of  space  reveals  that  when  we  speak  of  a  thing  as  being  here  or 
there  we  are  simply  assigning  to  a  given  group  of  tactual  sensations 
its  position  in  the  vast  system  of  tactual  and  movement  sensations 
which  constitutes  the  real  world  in  space  and  time.2  If  I  choose  to 
locate  a  mathematical  point  in  this  room,  I  treat  the  point  as  I 
would  treat  an  atom,  and  I  believe  that  a  line  might  be  drawn 
from  one  wall  through  the  point  in  question  to  another  wall.  It 
seems,  then,  that  to  be  anywhere,  in  an  intelligible  sense  of  the 
word,  a  thing  must  be  material.  It  must  form  a  part  of  the  mate- 
rial system  of  things,  and  this  it  cannot  do  without  being  itself 
material. 

Now  does  any  one  suppose  that  any  degree  of  acuteness  in 
vision  would  reveal  the  mind  to  be  in  the  boy's  body  as  an  atom 
of  matter  is  in  it  ?  Such  a  supposition  seems  to  be  quite  excluded 
by  the  statement  that  the  mind  is  immaterial.  In  what  sense, 
then,  can  the  mind  be  in  the  body?  A  careful  examination  of 
the  plain  man's  opinion  upon  this  subject  reveals  the  fact  that  he 
really  does  assign  to  the  mind,  dimly  and  vaguely,  an  atomic  "in"- 
ness,  while  refusing  to  accept  all  that  this  implies  — perhaps,  even, 
while  holding  to  what  flatly  contradicts  this. 

The  doctrine  that  the  mind  is  in  the  body  is  venerable  with  age. 
At  first  it  was  a  mind  that  was  very  unequivocally  in;  it  was  com- 

1  Chapter  XV. 

2  This  use  of  the  word  "sensation"  is  subject  to  the  criticisms  contained  in 
Chapter  XXIII. 


The  Atomic  Self  267 

posed  of  fine  round  atoms,  highly  movable  atoms,  etc.  It  could 
be  inhaled  and  exhaled,  and  might  escape  through  a  gaping  wound, 
as  wine  spouts  through  the  rent  wine-skin.  It  was  a  kind  of 
matter  and  nothing  more,  having  the  same  right  to  occupy  space 
that  has  any  other  form  of  matter.  Afterward  it  was  for  centu- 
ries still  in  the  body,  but  in  a  much  more  indefinite  and  inconsist- 
ent fashion.  It  was  wholly  in  the  whole  body,  and  wholly  in 
every  part. 

This  scholastic  doctrine  I  have  criticised  earlier,1  and  it  is  not 
necessary  for  me  to  dilate  upon  it  here  further  than  to  say  that, 
to  have  this  collocation  of  words  mean  anything  to  him,  a  man  must 
think  vaguely  of  "in "-ness,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  and 
must  keep  what  he  has  in  mind  very  vague.  He  must  think  of  an 
immaterial  atom,  which  by  virtue  of  its  being  an  atom  can  be  some- 
where, and  by  virtue  of  its  immateriality  can  be  nowhere  in  par- 
ticular, but  rather  everywhere  in  general.  It  is  an  echo  of  this 
doctrine  that  comes  before  us  as  the  opinion  of  the  plain  man, 
although  he  has  never  heard  the  words  tota  in  toto,  and  may  be 
shocked  by  their  meaning  as  explained  to  him.  He  thinks  of 
the  mind  as  in  the  body,  much  as  a  material  atom  is  in  the  body, 
and  yet  he  does  not  think  that  it  would  be  open  to  direct  inspection, 
however  acute  one's  power  of  vision.  He  hesitates  to  localize  it 
very  definitely,  and  would  be  unwilling  to  speak  of  it  as  exactly  at 
the  middle  of  the  straight  line  joining  this  atom  and  that.  He 
shakes  his  head  over  the  suggestion  that,  if  the  mind  really  is  in 
the  body,  a  line  might  conceivably  be  drawn  through  two  different 
brains  in  such  a  way  as  to  pass  through  two  different  minds,  whose 
distance  apart  might,  thus,  be  accurately  determined. 

But  it  may  be  urged  that,  however  indefinite  the  plain  man's 
ideas  may  be,  it  is  scarcely  fair  to  foist  upon  him  the  scholastic 
doctrine  of  the  ubiquity  of  the  mind  in  the  body.  The  objection 
is  perhaps  just,  for  that  doctrine  is  not  completely  represented  in 
the  echoes  of  it  which  come  back  to  us  from  most  men's  minds. 
Yet  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  more  completely  one  elimi- 
nates from  one's  thought  the  notion  of  this  absurd  ubiquity,  and 
the  more  earnestly  one  strives  to  make  the  presence  of  the  mind 
in  the  body  a  comprehensible  thing,  the  more  plain  does  it  become 
that  what  one  has  in  mind  is  an  atomic  self,  a  minute  material  self, 
which  is  present  in  the  body  as  any  material  atom  is  present  in  a 

i  Chapter  V. 


268  Mind  and  Matter 

group  of  such  atoms.  We  can  see  this  well  illustrated  in  the  case 
of  Descartes,  whose  acquaintance  with  the  mechanism  of  the  body 
led  him  to  attempt  an  emendation  of  the  scholastic  doctrine.  He 
did  not  deny  the  ubiquity  of  the  mind,  for  he  was  willing  to  assert, 
in  accordance  with  the  orthodox  tradition,  that  it  was  united  to  all 
the  parts  of  the  body  "conjointement."  Nevertheless,  he  assigned 
to  the  mind  a  "  sidge  principale  "  in  the  little  pineal  gland  in  the 
middle  of  the  brain.  Listen  to  what  he  has  to  say  touching  its 
behavior  in  this  its  inner  sanctum :  — 

"  Let  us  here,  then,  conceive  of  the  soul  as  having  her  chief 
seat  in  the  little  gland  which  is  in  the  middle  of  the  brain,  whence 
she  radiates  to  all  the  rest  of  the  body  by  means  of  the  spirits,  the 
nerves,  and  even  the  blood,  which,  participating  in  the  impressions' 
of  the  spirits,  can  carry  them  through  the  arteries  to  all  the  mem- 
bers. And  let  us  remember  what  has  been  said  above  of  the 
mechanism  of  the  body,  to  wit,  that  the  little  threads  of  our 
nerves  are  so  distributed  to  all  its  parts,  that,  on  occasion  of  divers 
movements  excited  in  those  parts  by  the  objects  of  sense,  they 
open  in  divers  ways  the  pores  of  the  brain,  which  brings  it  about 
that  the  animal  spirits  contained  in  these  cavities  enter  in  different 
ways  into  the  muscles,  by  means  of  which  they  can  move  the  mem- 
bers in  all  the  different  ways  in  which  they  are  capable  of  being 
moved ;  and  also  that  all  other  causes,  that  can  move  the  spirits 
diversely,  can  conduct  them  to  divers  muscles.  Let  us  add,  too, 
that  the  little  gland  which  is  the  chief  seat  of  the  soul  is  so  sus- 
pended between  the  cavities  that  contain  these  spirits,  that  it  can 
be  moved  by  them  in  as  many  different  ways  as  there  are  different 
sensible  qualities  in  the  objects  ;  yet  that  it  can  also  be  moved  in  dif- 
ferent ways  by  the  soul,  whose  nature  is  such  that  it  receives  as 
many  different  impressions,  i.e.  has  as  many  different  perceptions, 
as  there  are  different  movements  in  this  gland.  The  mechanism 
of  the  body  is  so  constructed  that,  simply  from  the  fact  that  this 
gland  is  moved  in  divers  ways  by  the  soul,  or  by  whatever  cause 
may  be,  it  pushes  the  spirits  which  surround  it  toward  the  pores  of 
the  brain,  which  conduct  them  by  the  nerves  to  the  muscles,  and 
thus  makes  them  move  the  members."  l 

"  Thus,  when  the  soul  wills  to  call  anything  to  remembrance, 
this  volition  brings  it  about  that  the  gland,  inclining  itself  suc- 

1  "  Les  Passions  de  1'Ame,"  Art.  34.     The  "spirits"  here  referred  to  are,  of 
course,  the  "  animal  spirits,''  and  nothing  immaterial. 


The  Atomic  Self  269 

cessively  in  different  directions,  pushes  the  spirits  toward  divers 
parts  of  the  brain,  until  they  find  the  part  which  has  the  traces 
that  the  object  which  one  wishes  to  recollect  has  left  there.  For 
these  traces  are  nothing  except  that  the  pores  of  the  brain,  through 
which  the  spirits  have  formerly  taken  their  course  because  of  the 
presence  of  the  object,  have  acquired  thereby  a  greater  facility 
than  the  others  of  being  opened  again  in  the  same  way  by  the 
spirits  which  return  to  them.  Thus  these  spirits  meeting  these 
pores  enter  more  easily  into  them  than  into  the  others,  by  which 
means  they  excite  a  peculiar  movement  in  the  gland,  which  repre- 
sents to  the  soul  the  same  object  and  makes  it  conscious  that  it  is 
the  one  it  wishes  to  recollect."  l 

Can  anything  be  more  clearly  material  than  this  little  mind 
that  sits  in  the  pineal  gland  ?  It  has  its  definite  place  among 
other  material  things  ;  it  appears  to  be  able  to  push  and  be  pushed 
like  the  veriest  bit  of  matter.  Its  presence  in  the  body  does  not 
seem  at  all  incomprehensible,  for  it  does  not  appear  to  be  in  any 
wise  different  from  the  presence  of  a  pen  between  a  man's  fingers, 
or  the  presence  of  a  human  body  in  a  room.  If  one  goes  on  to  say 
that  the  mind  is  wholly  without  extension,  is  immaterial,  and  the 
like,  one's  thought  becomes  once  more  somewhat  confused,  for  one 
is  affirming  material  presence  and  in  the  same  breath  denying  that 
the  thing  present  is  really  material.  But  if  one's  thought  is 
sufficiently  vague,  the  contradiction  is  not  unpleasantly  apparent, 
and  may  conveniently  be  overlooked.  The  scholastic  doctrine 
tries  to  make  too  clear  what  is  meant  by  immaterial  presence ;  it 
stirs  up  the  contradiction  and  makes  it  growl,  striking  fear  to  the 
heart  of  the  beholder.  Descartes,  in  his  doctrine  of  the  soul's 
seat,  emphasized  the  presence,  and  passed  over  the  difficulty  about 
its  being  immaterial.  It  goes  without  saying  that  if  one  empha- 
sizes loth  sides  of  the  inconsistent  doctrine,  and  makes  both  clear, 
the  result  cannot  but  be  disconcerting  —  except  to  the  chosen  few 
who  have  embraced  a  philosophy  of  contradictions,  and  rejoice  in 
the  absurdity  of  the  conclusions  to  which  their  reasonings  conduct 
them. 

That  the  attempt  to  make  at  all  clear  the  nature  of  the  pres- 
ence of  the  mind  in  the  body  reveals  that  what  is  really  at  the 
heart  of  the  plain  man's  thought  is  a  material  presence,  may  be 
equally  well  illustrated  by  taking  a  modern  instance.  No  one 
1  "Les  Passions  de  1'Ame,"  Art.  42. 


270  Mind  and  Matter 

kept  closer  to  the  philosophy  of  the  plain  man  than  the  late  Dr. 
Me  Cosh.  His  works  have  appealed  to  a  very  large  number  of 
cultivated  persons,  not  specialists  in  philosophy,  as  embodying 
the  most  sensible  opinions,  and  the  most  reasonably  conservative, 
on  many  subjects  with  which  the  philosopher  deals.  He  has 
never  been  accused  of  being  a  materialist,  and  he  certainly  never 
meant  to  lend  his  countenance  to  those  who  incline  to  this  type 
of  thought.  Yet  when  he  comes  to  speak  of  mind  and  body,  and 
makes  the  effort  to  be  a  little  explicit,  he  is  capable  of  writing  as 
follows :  — 

"  The  mind  is  so  constituted  as  to  attain  a  knowledge  of  body 
or  of  material  objects.  It  may  be  difficult  to  ascertain  the  exact 
point  or  surface  at  which  the  mind  and  body  come  together  and 
influence  each  other,  in  particular,  how  far  into  the  body  (Des- 
cartes without  proof  thought  it  to  be  in  the  pineal  gland),  but  it 
is  certain  that  when  they  do  meet  mind  knows  body  as  having  its 
essential  properties  of  extension  and  resisting  energy."  1 

Here  we  find  the  scholastic  ubiquity  stripped  away.  The 
mind  is  not  in  the  body  "  in  general,"  but  is  located  at  some  un- 
known distance  within  the  skin.  It  can  meet  matter  ;  it  can  come 
together  with  it,  possibly  at  a  point,  possibly  at  a  surface.  Must 
it  not  be  a  material  mind  that  can  act  thus  ?  In  contemplating 
the  boy's  brain  as  a  swarm  of  atoms,  we  can  at  least  conceive  any 
two  of  them  as  meeting  each  other.  They  can  lie  side  by  side  in 
space,  with  no  room  between  them.  They  can  touch  each  other. 
Whether  atoms  do  actually  ever  touch  each  other  is  not  a  question 
with  which  we  need  concern  ourselves  here.  We  can  conceive 
that  they  do,  and  we  can  use  the  expressions  "  come  together " 
and  "meet"  in  a  perfectly  intelligible  sense.  But  suppose  one 
of  the  atoms  to  be  immaterial,  that  is,  suppose  it  not  to  be  an 
atom,  a  thing  that  can  be  touched.  What  can  we  mean  by  a 
meeting  between  a  thing  that  can  be  touched  and  a  thing  that 
cannot?  They  can  certainly  not  touch  each  other,  and  if  not 
that,  what  do  they  do  ?  It  is  perfectly  evident  that,  in  so  far  as 
Dr.  McCosh's  conception  seems  to  the  reader  satisfactory,  it  is 
because  he  has  emphasized  the  presence  of  the  mind  in  the  usual 
sense  of  the  word  "  presence,"  and  has  passed  over  the  difficulties 
which  arise  out  of  the  attempt  to  combine  with  this  the  notion 
of  immateriality. 

1  "  First  and  Fundamental  Truths,"  N.Y.,  1889,  Part  II,  Book  I,  Chapter  II. 


The  Atomic  Self  271 

And  if,  when  one  emphasizes  the  notion  of  immateriality,  that 
of  the  presence  of  the  mind  fades  out  into  utter  indefiniteness, 
what  becomes  of  the  conception  of  interaction  ?  We  can  conceive 
of  a  new  atom  being  brought  into  the  group  of  atoms  which  con- 
stitute a  human  body,  and  of  its  interacting  with  them.  This 
means  that  it  and  the  others  approach  to  or  recede  from  each 
other  in  ways  that  can  be  explained  by  a  reference  to  mechanical 
laws.  Interaction  in  this  sense  seems  out  of  the  question  where 
one  is  no  longer  dealing  with  material  things. 

But  in  what  sense,  then,  can  we  speak  of  the  interaction  of 
mind  and  body  ?  It  is  easy  to  say  that  when  the  mind  wills,  such 
and  such  changes  take  place  in  the  material  world ;  but  to  say 
this  is  simply  to  go  back  to  the  common  experience  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  volition,  and  that  this  is  in  some  way  related  to 
the  changes  that  take  place  in  the  world  of  material  things.  This 
experience  no  one  cares  to  deny.  It  is  admitted  as  frankly  by 
those  who  regard  the  world  of  matter  as  a  perfect  mechanism,  as 
it  is  by  the  interactionist.  From  this  experience  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  atomic  self  in  the  pineal  gland  or  elsewhere  is  a  very  long 
step,  and  one  never  made  by  the  plain  man  independently.  When 
he  makes  it,  he  has  passed  from  experience  to  philosophical  theory, 
and  it  is  perfectly  just  that  this  philosophical  theory  should  be 
expected  to  stand  or  fall  according  as  it  succeeds  in  explaining 
or  fails  to  explain  the  experience  which  it  undertakes  to  make 
comprehensible. 

It  is,  then,  right  that  we  should  ask  how  this  atomic  self  is  to 
be  conceived  as  setting  in  motion  material  atoms.  What  is  its 
volition  ?  Shall  we  think  of  it  as  a  motion  ?  If  we  do,  we  are 
back  again  within  the  realm  of  matter.  Shall  we  deny  it  to  be  a 
motion,  and  hold  that  it  is  a  peculiar  and  indescribable  occurrence 
which  takes  place  within  the  self,  and  wholly  within  the  self? 
Then  how  shall  we  conceive  this  change  within  an  immaterial 
atom  to  bring  about  motions  in  material  atoms  ?  The  immaterial 
atom  is  not  spatially  present,  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  those 
words ;  the  change  which  has  taken  place  is  wholly  within  it ;  and 
yet  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  motions  in  matter.  If  this 
does  not  strike  the  plain  man  as  a  serious  difficulty,  it  is  because 
he  sees  so  dimly  that  he  is  unable  to  recognize  a  difficulty  when  he 
meets  one. 

But  to  those  who  have  given  the  subject  careful  thought,  the 


272  Mind  and  Matter 

difficulty  of  patching  up  a  mechanism  with  immaterial  cogs  and 
couplings  has  seemed  an  enormous  one.  Descartes  appeared  to 
have  made  reasonably  comprehensible  the  interaction  of  mind  and 
body  when  he  placed  the  former  in  the  pineal  gland,  where  it 
could,  so  to  speak,  hold  in  its  hand  all  the  strings  of  the  machine. 
On  the  other  hand,  Descartes  had  declared  the  mind  to  be  non- 
extended,  and  had  made  its  essence  to  consist  in  thought.  How 
could  such  an  entity  be  conceived  to  possess  a  hand  material  enough 
to  hold  material  strings  at  all?  This  problem  had  to  be  faced  by 
Descartes'  successors,  and,  the  notion  of  immateriality  winning 
the  day  over  that  of  material  presence,  they  felt  compelled  to  deny 
that  it  could  hold  the  strings.  The  mind  wills,  said  one,  but  it 
cannot,  thereby,  directly  affect  matter ;  on  occasion  of  its  volition, 
God  brings  about  changes  in  material  things.  The  mind  perceives 
things,  said  another,  but  not  by  virtue  of  their  directly  affecting 
it ;  it  sees  things  in  God.  The  difficulty  is  as  great  now  as  it  ever 
was,  and  if  the  plain  man  is  not  driven  to  such  extremes  by  the 
inconsistency  of  his  doctrine,  it  is,  as  I  have  said,  because  he  does 
not  greatly  emphasize  the  notion  of  immateriality.  His  explana- 
tion of  the  interaction  of  mind  and  matter  can  only  seem  to  him 
an  explanation  in  so  far  as  his  thinking  is  materialistic.  No  man 
would  attempt  to  fill  in  a  gap  in  a  series  of  colors  by  the  insertion 
of  a  smell  clearly  recognized  to  be  such.  But  a  man  might  talk 
of  completing  his  color-series  in  this  abnormal  way,  if  he  dimly 
conceived  of  a  smell  as  being  some  kind  of  a  color. 

It  is,  hence,  sufficiently  clear  that  it  is  easy  to  conceive  this 
immaterial  atom  as  present  in  and  interactive  with  the  body,  only 
so  long  as  one  dimly  thinks  of  it  as  material.  When  one  is  careful 
to  eliminate  from  one's  thought  every  suggestion  of  the  material, 
all  positive  content  seems  to  vanish. 

Nor  is  there  a  difficulty  only  with  the  conceptions  of  presence 
and  interaction.  If  it  is  true  that  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  the 
atomic  self  as  having  a  r61e  to  play  in  the  management  of  the 
bodily  mechanism,  it  is  no  less  true  that  it  is  hard  to  frame  any 
idea,  which  shall  have  even  an  approach  to  clearness,  of  the  nature 
of  this  immaterial  entity  and  its  relation  to  its  ideas. 

We  are  told  that  it  is  an  immaterial  substance  and  that  it 
possesses  attributes.  But  what,  in  general,  is  a  substance,  and 
what  is  its  relation  to  its  attributes  ?  If  we  search  curiously  into 
this  obscure  notion,  we  are  carried  back  many  centuries  in  the 


The  Atomic  Self  273 

history  of  philosophy,  and  we  realize  that  the  opinions  of  the  plain 
man  have  their  roots  in  a  remote  antiquity.  We  see  that  it  has 
seemed  to  many  generations  of  thinking  men  too  evident  to  require 
proof,  that  each  thing  must  consist  of  a  substance  with  its  qualities 
or  attributes.  The  qualities  are  color,  form,  hardness,  taste,  smell, 
and  the  like,  in  the  case  of  certain  things,  and  thinking,  remember- 
ing, willing,  and  the  like,  in  the  case  of  others.  The  substance  is 
of  a  more  retiring  nature,  and  does  not  present  itself  to  direct 
inspection.  Nevertheless,  it  is  there,  and  it  is  indispensable.  It 
is  substance,  substratum,  that  which  underlies  the  qualities,  that 
which  has  them.  It  exists  in  itself — per  se  subsistit  —  and  they 
exist  in  it  as  dependent  existences. 

If  one  will  imagine  a  pin-cushion  stripped  of  those  qualities  by 
which  we  commonly  recognize  it  to  be  a  pin-cushion,  its  exten- 
sion, its  hardness,  its  weight,  its  color,  etc.,  and  if  we  will  permit 
it  to  retain  only  the  property  of  holding  the  pins  which  are  stuck 
(? !)  into  it,  we  shall  have  something  that  at  least  suggests  the  sub- 
stance which  busied  philosophers  all  through  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  busies  a  number  of  them  even  at  the  present  time.  It  has  sur- 
vived some  very  serious  shocks  in  its  day.  When  Descartes  made 
a  feint  of  sweeping  aside  all  the  philosophical  prejudices  which 
had  come  down  to  him  from  the  past,  he  was  unable  to  rid  himself 
of  this  notion.  He  made  the  essence  of  matter  to  consist  in  exten- 
sion, and  the  essence  of  mind  to  consist  in  thought,  but  these  es- 
sences are  not  in  themselves  complete  and  independent.  They 
drag  with  them  as  their  shadow  the  substance  or  substratum  which 
the  "natural  light"  (a  euphemism  for  inveterate  prejudice)  con- 
vinced Descartes  must  accompany  every  quality  or  attribute.1  The 
substances  thus  brought  in  play  no  part  in  the  Cartesian  philoso- 
phy ;  throughout  the  whole  four  acts  they  remain  behind  the 
scenes.  Still  they  are  assumed  to  be  present,  and  to  be  in  some 
obscure  way  indispensable  to  the  drama. 

.  One  of  the  most  serious  attacks  ever  made  upon  this  ghostly 
pin-cushion  was  made  by  one  of  its  friends.  When  John  Locke 
undertook  to  make  clear  the  distinction  between  ideas,  qualities 
of  things,  and  substance,  he  did  the  last  of  these  a  great  disser- 
vice. He  made  it  too  clear  that,  when  one  has  carefully  dis- 
tinguished between  qualities  and  substance  and  has  set  all 
qualities  of  whatever  sort  on  the  one  side  and  naked  substance  on 
^'Principia  Philosophise,"  I,  ii. 


274  Mind  and  Matter 

the  other,  the  nakedness  of  the  thing  is  so  complete  as  to  resemble 
the  emptiness  of  a  vacuum.  One  is  tempted  to  ask  whether  one 
has  anything  left  at  all.  We  have  no  idea  what  substance  is, 
said  Locke ;  we  have  only  an  indefinite  notion  of  what  it  does.  It 
is  a  "  we  know  not  what,"  and  its  function  is  to  hold  together  the 
bundle  of  qualities  which  constitute  the  things  we  do  know.  The 
idea  could  not  have  been  gained  from  any  experience  whatever, 
and  its  existence  cannot  be  logically  defended.1 

Surely  an  entity  at  such  a  pass  has  no  excuse  for  existing ;  we 
do  not  know  what  it  is ;  we  have  not  the  faintest  idea  how  it  can 
do  what  it  is  supposed  to  do ;  the  fact  of  its  existence  has  been 
assumed  without  apparent  justification.  It  appears  to  be  made 
out  of  whole  cloth,  if  so  mere  a  nothing  can  be  said  to  be  made  out 
of  cloth  at  all,  and  did  it  possess  a  particle  of  self-respect  it  would 
expire  and  be  done  with.  Curiously  enough,  it  does  not  expire 
even  in  the  pages  of  Locke,  which  contain  poison  enough  to  make 
away  with  a  dozen  such  ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  lurks  in  the 
obscurer  corners  of  the  mind  of  the  plain  man,  who  may  quite  fail 
to  see  that  it  is  living  on  through  sheer  effrontery  and  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  it  has  logically  died  and  been  buried. 

The  interesting  question  is,  Why  does  it  live  on?  Why  does 
it  seem  worth  while  for  men  to  insist  upon  the  existence  of  so  mere 
a  nonentity?  This  question  we  can  answer  by  pointing  out  that 
this  nonentity  is  a  vampire  which  draws  from  the  qualities,  with 
the  sum  total  of  which  it  is  supposed  to  be  contrasted,  the  few 
drops  of  blood  which  nourish  its  equivocal  being. 

John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  remarkable  chapter  on  "  The  Psycho- 
logical Theory  of  the  Primary  Qualities  of  Matter,"  has  insisted 
that,  when  we  speak  of  material  substance,  we  really  have  in  mind 
the  touch-qualities  of  a  thing,  qualities  which,  taken  together,  form, 
as  it  were,  an  inner  nucleus,  to  which  we  refer  all  the  other  quali- 
ties.2 His  analysis  is  quite  in  the  line  of  modern  psychological 
investigations,  which  recognize  that  the  real  world  in  space  and 
time  is  a  world  revealed  in  terms  of  touch-movement  sensations. 
Hut  Mill  might  profitably  have  brought  out  more  clearly  the  fact 
that,  when  we  distinguish  between  a  thing  and  its  qualities,  the 
thing  is  not  clearly  recognized  by  us  to  be  composed  of  qualities  of 
any  sort.  It  is  indefinitely  thought  of  as  the  possibility  of  all  the 

1  "Essay,"  Book  I,  Chapter  IV,  §  18  ;  Book  IT,  Chapter  XXIII,  §4. 

2  "  An  Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy,"  Chapter  XIII. 


The  Atomic  Self  275 

qualities,  the  centre  from  which  they  emanate,  the  bond  of  union 
between  them.  It  is  the  group  as  a  group  contrasted  with  the 
individuals  which  compose  it.  Manifestly,  if  we  carefully  put  all 
the  individuals  aside,  the  group  disappears  and  we  are  left  without 
a  residue. 

This  is  what  Locke  did  and  he  left  himself  empty-handed. 
But  in  so  far  as  Locke  still  believed  in  substance,  and  indefi- 
nitely thought  of  it  as  a  real  existence,  he  did  what  is  done  by  the 
plain  man,  he  made  an  imperfect  abstraction,  leaving  enough  of 
the  qualitative  to  prevent  his  substance  from  becoming  a  mere 
nothing.  He  was,  of  course,  inconsistent,  but  inconsistency  comes 
to  be  regarded  as  almost  a  prerogative  of  the  philosopher  by  those 
who  read  much  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  Material  substance 
remained  to  Locke  enough  of  a  touch-thing  to  be  in  this  place  or 
that,  to  be  moved  about.  He  thought  of  it  vaguely  as  one  thinks 
of  things  that  can  be  touched,  and  there  certainly  was  dimly  pres- 
ent to  his  mind  the  core  of  tactual  qualities  upon  which  Mill  dwells 
and  which  he  himself  in  his  moments  of  clearer  thought  set  over 
against  substance  as  something  to  be  contrasted  with  it. 

With  the  useful  distinction  between  substance  and  qualities  I 
have  no  quarrel.  I  wish  merely  to  point  out  that  it  is  very  easy 
to  misconceive  the  significance  of  the  distinction  and  to  suppose 
that  the  substance  is  a  something  that  can  be  set  over  against  the 
qualities  in  their  totality.  It  is  a  little  as  though  one  distin- 
guished between  the  river  and  all  the  water  that  ever  flows  in  the 
river.  And  when  one  falls  into  the  error  of  treating  substance  in 
this  way,  it  is  clear  that  one  gains  an  indefinite  meaning  for  what 
would  otherwise  be  an  empty  word,  by  borrowing  something  from 
the  bundle  of  qualities  with  which  the  substance  is  contrasted. 
When  the  plain  man  distinguishes  between  the  table  and  the  quali- 
ties of  the  table,  his  words  undoubtedly  mean  something  to  him.  The 
table  as  substance  is  not  to  be  accepted  as  a  mysterious  and  unan- 
alyzable  datum  in  his  experience.  It  is  perfectly  possible  to  ana- 
lyze the  conception,  and  to  show  what  elements  are  present  in  his 
thought.  There  is  present  in  a  vague  and  shadowy  way  that  core 
of  touch-qualities  emphasized  by  Mill,  and  this  is  present  even 
when  he  insists  that  he  is  not  thinking  of  qualities  at  all.  Were 
it  not  present,  he  would  not  treat  substance  as  he  does,  giving  it  a 
local  habitation,  and  thinking  of  it  as  in  things. 

That  this  is  in  his  thought  when  he  talks  of  material  substance, 


276  Mind  and  Matter 

and  that  this  content  accounts  for  the  satisfaction  with  which  he 
comes  back  to  a  conception  which  would  otherwise  be  to  him  a 
meaningless  abstraction,  is  sufficiently  clear.  But  what  has  been 
said  above  about  the  general  tendency  to  give  the  atomic  self  a 
materialistic  presence  in  the  body  makes  it  also  evident  that  this 
is  present  in  his  thought  even  when  he  is  talking  about  a  substance 
which  he  assumes  to  be  immaterial.  Surely  this  is  illegitimate  in 
the  highest  degree.  An  immaterial  self  must  not  be  represented 
in  our  minds  by  any  group  of  touch-qualities,  however  indefinite. 
How,  then,  shall  we  think  it  ? 

The  problem  is  a  very  serious  one  indeed.  How  important  a 
part  the  touch-movement  sensations  play  in  a  man's  notion  of  ma- 
terial substance,  he  can  make  clear  to  himself  by  trying  consistently 
to  carry  out  the  Lockian  abstraction.  Here  is  this  table  :  it  is 
colored,  hard,  extended.  One  may  think  of  these  qualities  as 
inhering  in  a  substance.  Now  abstract  in  thought  the  color.  The 
table  seems  to  remain;  it  is  a  table  in  the  dark.  But  abstract 
every  degree  of  hardness,  and  all  extension.  The  table  seems  to 
disappear  completely.  Yet  the  hardness  and  the  extension  are 
assumed  to  be  qualities,  and  distinct  from  the  substance  which 
underlies  them.  Nevertheless,  in  their  absence,  the  substance 
evaporates.  Is  the  substance  in  itself  extended  ?  or  is  extension 
only  one  of  its  qualities  ?  If  it  is  not  in  itself  extended,  how  can 
it  "  hold  together  "  this  whole  expanse  of  table-top  ?  How  can  it 
be,  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the  word,  a  substratum  f  One  can- 
not spread  a  non-extended  entity  under  an  expanse  of  anything, 
and  if  it  is  not  necessary  for  the  substance  to  be  spread  under  the 
qualities  in  any  sense  at  all,  why  may  not  the  substance  of  that 
door  support  the  qualities  of  this  table  as  well  as  the  qualities  of 
that  door?  One  who  travels  this  road  may  easily  reach  the  point 
of  maintaining  that  there  is  only  one  substance,  and  this  is  next 
door  to  maintaining  that  there  is  no  substance  at  all,  at  least  in  any 
sense  of  the  word  at  all  analogous  to  that  in  which  it  has  been  used 
in  the  preceding  discussion. 

Now  when  a  man  talks  of  an  immaterial  substance  he  almost 
forces  himself  to  a  Lockian  thoroughness  of  abstraction  in  his 
treatment  of  substance.  The  dim  core  of  touch-qualities  which 
has  inconsistently  remained  in  his  thought  and  has  prevented  him 
from  groping  in  mere  emptiness  is  threatened  with  total  extinction. 
How  is  he  to  think  even  dimly  of  this  immaterial  substance  ?  He 


The  Atomic  Self  277 

feels  impelled  to  assert,  in  accordance  with  the  ancient  tradition, 
that  it  is  simple  and  non-extended.  But  these  negative  determi- 
nations are  just  the  knife  that  should  cut  him  off  from  the  vague 
materialistic  content  that  gives  its  meaning  to  his  conception  of 
substance. 

His  only  recourse  is  to  retain  at  all  hazards  a  little  meaning, 
and  allow  his  thought  to  grow  still  dimmer  than  it  was  before.  If 
his  material  substance  was  the  shade  of  a  group  of  material  quali- 
ties, his  mental  substance,  the  atomic  self,  is  the  shade  of  a  shade. 
So  dim  is  it  and  so  unreal,  that  he  has  not  the  least  expectation  of 
attaining  to  any  clear  ideas  regarding  it,  and  he  may  even  resent 
the  attempt  to  set  it  in  a  sharper  light.  His  notions  of  it  and  its 
ideas  and  activities  are  a  mere  mess  of  inconsistencies  and  incom- 
prehensibilities, and  with  this  mess  he  is  content  because  he  does 
not  believe  that  consistency  and  clearness  can  justly  be  looked  for 
in  this  corner  of  the  realm  of  human  knowledge. 

When,  therefore,  one  talks  of  abandoning  the  speculations  of 
the  philosophers  and  of  coming  back  to  the  more  sober  conceptions 
of  the  plain  man,  it  is  right  that  we  should  ask  him  to  open  his 
eyes  and  see  to  what  he  is  coming  back.  He  is  not  coming  back 
to  experience,  i.e.  to  uninterpreted  experience.  He  is  abandoning 
certain  speculations  for  certain  others,  which,  by  no  means  satis- 
factory in  themselves,  yet  seem  satisfactory  to  a  large  number  of 
persons,  because  they  are  matter  of  tradition  and  have  come  to  fit 
their  habits  of  thought  as  an  old  shoe  fits  the  foot. 

That  there  is  nothing  even  moderately  clear  in  this  doctrine  is 
written  all  over  its  face.  We  have  seen  that  when  we  ask  what 
the  atomic  immaterialistic  self  is  and  how  we  are  to  conceive  it,  no 
answer  is  forthcoming.  It  appears  to  be  a  shadow  of  a  materialis- 
tic shadow.  When  we  ask  how  it  can  be  present  in  the  body,  it 
becomes  evident  that,  in  so  far  as  it  is  thought  of  as  present,  it  is 
thought  of  as  material.  Manifestly  we  must  not  think  of  it  as  ma- 
terial. When  we  ask  how  it  interacts  with  matter,  no  one  even 
pretends  to  give  us  information. 

If,  now,  we  turn  in  desperation  to  inquire  at  least  how  we  are 
to  conceive  its  relation  to  its  own  ideas,  we  fare  no  better.  What  do 
we  mean  when  we  say  that  it  has  ideas  ?  May  we  regard  the  ideas 
as  minute  pictures  that  exist  in  or  on  the  surface  of  this  substance? 
A  good  many  intelligent  persons  can  be  brought  to  confess,  by 
means  of  a  little  questioning,  that  they  are  apt  to  represent  the 


278  Mind  and  Matter 

thing  to  themselves  in  this  way.  But  a  moment's  reflection  makes 
it  apparent  that  this  will  not  serve  even  to  give,  a  hint  of  the  rela- 
tion which  must  be  conceived  to  obtain  between  the  atomic  self 
and  its  ideas. 

That  which  is  perfectly  simple  and  non-extended  cannot  have 
an  inside  and  an  outside,  and  it  is  not  conceivable  that  anything 
should  be  either  in  it  or  on  it,  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  those 
words.  Moreover,  the  ideas  themselves  do  not  appear  to  be  sim- 
ple. If  I  close  my  eyes  and  call  up  in  imagination  a  barber's  pole, 
it  seems  to  stand  before  me  as  an  extended  thing  in  which  white  lies 
beside  red  and  red  beside  white.  Does  it  mean  anything  whatever 
to  talk  of  this  composite  something  as  either  in  or  on  a  non-extended 
and  simple  substance  ? 

To  be  sure,  I  may  maintain  that  the  imaginary  barber's  pole 
only  seems  to  be  extended,  and  is  not  really  extended  at  all; 
but  if  I  do  this  I  fall  headlong  into  a  difficulty  quite  as  grave  as 
the  one  I  am  seeking  to  avoid.  Plow  can  that  which  is  quite 
simple  and  non-extended  seem  to  have  part  out  of  part?  Has 
it  really  no  parts  at  all  ?  Am  I  fed  with  pure  illusion,  and  is  the 
white  not  really  different  and  distinct  from  the  red  and  the  red 
from  the  white  ?  One  may  diminish  the  size  of  a  thing  and  yet 
retain  certain  characteristics  which  make  it  possible  to  distinguish 
it  as  a  thing  of  a  given  class.  A  small  picture  of  a  horse  and  a 
large  one  may  both  be  recognized  to  be  pictures  of  a  horse.  But 
if  we  annihilate  altogether  the  extension  of  the  picture  of  a  horse, 
if  we  conceive  it  to  shrink  into  the  nothingness  of  a  mathematical 
point,  this  simple  and  non-extended  something  has  ceased  to  be 
a  picture  of  a  horse  at  all.  It  is  inconceivable  that  it  should 
represent  any  creature  in  the  heavens  above,  in  the  earth  beneath, 
or  in  the  waters  under  the  earth. 

When,  therefore,  the  plain  man  loosely  talks  of  ideas  as  small 
pictures,  he  may  be  speaking  unwisely,  but  he  is  not  talking  mere 
nonsense.  It  is  reserved  for  him  to  do  this  when,  laboring  under 
the  delusion  that  it  is  his  duty  to  put  these  ideas  in  or  on  a  non- 
extended  self,  he  affirms  of  them  absolute  simplicity  in  the  hope 
that  this  may  render  his  task  a  less  desperate  one.  We  must 
admit,  in  his  justification,  that  it  does  seem  somewhat  plausible  to 
maintain  that  it  is  more  difficult  to  conceive  of  an  extended  thing 
as  existing  in  or  on  a  non-extended  thing  than  to  conceive  of  a 
non-extended  thing  as  doing  this.  Still,  men  have  more  than  one 


The  Atomic  Self  279 

idea  at  a  time,  and  he  who  has  reduced  his  ideas  to  punctual 
insignificance  as  a  preliminary  to  incarcerating  them  in  their  space- 
less cell,  must  still  ask  himself  how  two  or  more  ideas  thus  bottled 
can  be  conceived  to  remain  distinct  and  distinguishable. 

When  brought  to  bay  by  questions,  the  plain  man  may  not 
unreasonably  maintain  that,  in  speaking  of  the  relation  of  the  self 
to  its  ideas,  he  uses  the  words  in  and  on  in  a  loose  sense,  and  does 
not  intend  them  to  be  taken  with  offensive  literalness.  We  all 
say  in  common  life  that  ideas  are  in  the  mind,  and  we  do  not  stop 
to  make  clear  to  ourselves  what  our  words  mean.  But  philosophic 
theory  —  and  the  doctrine  of  the  atomic  self  is  a  philosophic  theory 
—  has  no  right  to  be  content  with  the  indefiniteness  of  thought 
which  may  serve  a  useful  purpose  in  common  life.  When  Berkeley 
has  set  forth  his  doctrine  that  the  things  of  sense  are  only  ideas, 
and  are,  hence,  in  the  mind,  he  comes  face  to  face  with  the  objec- 
tion that,  if  they  are  extended  and  yet  are  in  the  mind,  the  mind 
must  be  extended.  This  consequence  he  is  not  ready  to  admit, 
and  he  argues  that  the  mind  is  not  extended,  for  these  things 
are  in  the  mind  only  "by  way  of  idea."1  What  can  this  mean? 
Nothing  definite.  He  has  fled  to  the  refuge  of  the  plain  man  — 
obscurity.  Ideas  are  in  the  mind  somehow,  but  just  how  cannot 
be  made  plain. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  tried  to  make  it  clear  that,  when 
the  indefinite  thought  of  the  plain  man  is  carefully  examined,  it  is 
found  to  be  the  echo  of  an  ancient  materialism  or  semi-materialism. 
This  gives  it  its  positive  content.  With  this  it  attempts  to  com- 
bine the  statement  that  the  self  is  immaterial.  When  great  em- 
phasis is  laid  upon  this  latter,  the  positive  content  of  the  atomic 
doctrine  is  wiped  out  of  existence.  But  in  most  men's  minds 
great  emphasis  is  not  laid  upon  this  negative  element,  and  they 
can  find  satisfaction  in  the  indefinite  materialistic  notions  which 
they  continue  to  hold  touching  the  substance  of  the  self,  its  rela- 
tion to  its  ideas,  its  presence  in  the  human  body,  and  its  interaction 
with  matter. 

It  may  appear  to  some  that  I  am  beating  a  dead  horse  in  thus 
criticising  at  length  the  doctrine  of  the  atomic  self.  It  is  held  in 
certain  quarters  that  the  notion  of  substratum  has  been  so  thor- 
oughly exploded  that  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  waste  time  over  it. 
Whatever  the  self  may  be,  it  is  said,  we  can  at  least  be  sure  that 
1  "  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  §  49. 


280  Mind  and  Matter 

it  is  not  the  Lockian  substance,  for  it  is  mere  misconception  to 
assume  that  things  have  an  indefinite  and  unintelligible  core  of 
this  kind. 

But  it  is  by  no  means  evident  that  the  doctrine  is  so  dead  as 
those  who  speak  thus  would  have  us  believe.  No  doctrine  can 
hold  its  own  for  centuries  as  the  orthodox  belief  of  the  scholarly 
world,  without  leaving  its  trace  upon  the  thought  even  of  an  age 
more  or  less  influenced  by  new  ideas.  The  doctrine  of  the  atomic 
self  is  emphatically  that  of  the  plain  man  to-day,  i.e.  it  embodies 
the  notions  cherished  by  vastly  the  greater  part  of  the  cultivated 
persons  whom  one  meets,  touching  the  nature  of  the  mind  and  its 
connection  with  the  body.  Until  quite  recently  it  was  about  the 
only  doctrine  taught  to  the  youth  in  the  higher  institutions  of 
learning  in  England  and  America,  and  it  is  still  presented  as  the 
final  word  of  wisdom  in  many  quarters  where  one  might  have 
expected  to  find  something  better. 

Nor  must  it  be  overlooked  —  and  this  is  a  point  of  especial 
importance  —  that  some  of  those  who  appear  to  be  the  most  ener- 
getic in  their  repudiation  of  the  atomic  self  do  not  really  repudiate 
it  at  all.  They  refine  it  away,  they  sublimate  it,  they  deny  to  it  a 
place  in  time  as  well  as  a  position  in  space,  they  render  it  the  most 
incomprehensible  of  all  incomprehensibles,  they  call  it  a  self-activ- 
ity —  and,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  they  go  on  thinking  of  it  indefi- 
nitely in  much  the  same  way  as  the  plain  man  thinks  of  his  atomic 
self.  The  dust  of  words  which  they  have  raised  makes  it  more  or 
less  difficult  to  distinguish  what  is  the  true  content  of  their  doc- 
trine. Nevertheless,  a  careful  examination  cannot  fail  to  reveal 
that  they  are  true  descendants  of  the  substratumists,  and  that,  if 
their  balloon  has  taken  an  all  too  erratic  flight  into  the  region  of 
thin  air,  it  is  only  because  they  have  been  more  incautious  than  the 
genuine  substratumist  in  throwing  out  the  materialistic  ballast 
that  keeps  the  doctrine  of  the  atomic  self  from  resolving  itself  into 
mere  negations.  Of  this  neo-Kantian  branch  of  the  substratumists 
I  have  treated  elsewhere,1  and  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  enter 
into  the  matter  here  at  greater  length. 

But  what  shall  we  say  to  one  who  drops  the  substratum  self 
altogether  and  assigns  to  ideas  the  r81e  which  has  heretofore  been 
assigned  to  it  —  who  makes  ideas  determinative  of  motions  in 
matter?  This  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  a  doctrine  affected  by  the 

1  Chapter  V. 


The  Atomic  Self  281 

plain  man,  for  he  must  have,  as  we  have  seen,  a  something  in  which 
ideas  may  inhere  or  to  which  they  may  in  some  sense  belong. 
Still,  it  is  a  possible  doctrine,  and  it  may  not  without  justice  be  re- 
garded as  a  development  from  or  a  modification  of  the  plain  man's 
doctrine.  That  they  have  much  in  common  becomes  evident  just 
as  soon  as  we  endeavor  to  make  quite  clear  what  is  meant  by  the 
statement  that  ideas  are  determinative  of  motions  in  matter. 

We  are  to  conceive  that  a  detailed  knowledge  of  all  the  motions 
of  all  the  atoms  constituting  the  body  of  the  boy  who  is  chasing 
the  dog  would  reveal  that  we  are  not  dealing  with  a  perfect 
mechanism.  At  some  point  there  is  a  break.  All  the  motions 
which  have  preceded  will  not  account  for  all  the  motions  that 
follow.  We  must  fill  up  this  gap  with  ideas  and  suppose  them  to 
be  capable  of  being  affected  by  the  machine  and,  in  turn,  of  affect- 
ing it.  In  other  words,  the  ideas  become,  at  least  for  the  time 
being,  a  part  of  the  machine. 

Now,  that  ideas  should  become  even  for  an  instant  a  part  of  the 
machine  can  seem  simple  and  natural  only  to  one  who  has  no  clear 
conception  of  all  that  this  implies.  If  the  statement  that  matter 
can  act  upon  ideas  and  ideas  upon  matter  is  to  mean  anything  at 
all,  and  is  not  to  remain  an  empty  collocation  of  sounds,  we  must 
conceive  the  ideas  to  be  present  in  the  body.  The  machine  needs 
patching  up  at  the  break,  and  the  insertion  of  a  coupling  which  is 
not  present  is  manifest  nonsense.  If  the  ideas  are  not  entities 
which  exist  in  space,  if  they  are  nowhere,  then  they  are,  of  course, 
no  nearer  to  the  point  at  which  they  are  needed  than  they  are  to 
any  other  point  in  the  body.  Indeed,  they  are  no  nearer  to  this 
point  than  they  are  to  any  point  in  any  other  body,  and  the  notion 
of  the  insertion  of  ideas  to  fill  a  gap  simply  lapses. 

Descartes  realized  this  truth  perfectly  well,  and  he  took  care  to 
put  his  soul  in  the  little  pineal  gland,  where  it  could  do  the  most 
good.  If  we  deny  that  the  things  which  interact  are  present  to 
each  other,  if  we  deny  that  they  form  part  of  the  same  system  in 
space,  we  exenterate  our  notion  of  interaction,  and  it  becomes  a 
mere  shell.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  do  not  have  to  go  far  afield  to 
discover  that  those  who  trace  the  series  of  changes  which  run  from 
the  periphery  of  the  body  along  the  afferent  nerves,  and  the  series 
of  changes  which  run  from  the  central  nervous  system  along  the 
efferent  nerves,  and  find  it  impossible  to  connect  these  with 
each  other  except  with  a  coupling  of  ideas  —  we  do  not,  I  say, 


282  Mind  and  Matter 

have  to  go  far  to  find  that  these  vaguely  assign  to  ideas  a  spatial 
presence,  and  put  them  between  the  two  sets  of  changes.  They  do 
precisely  what  the  plain  man  does  with  his  atomic  self,  and  they  do 
it,  just  as  he  does,  without  a  clear  recognition  of  what  it  is  that 
they  are  doing.1 

If,  then,  the  ideas  are  to  be  built  into  the  machine  in  even  a 
semi-intelligible  sense,  they  must  be  conceived  to  be  present  in 
the  body.  We  have  seen  above  that,  when  we  strive  to  get  a 
clear  understanding  of  the  nature  of  the  presence  of  the  atomic 
self  in  the  body,  we  discover  it  to  be  a  dimly  imagined  material 
presence.  Here  the  case  is  the  same.  But  this  vague  attribu- 
tion to  ideas  of  a  material  presence  must  go  the  way  of  all  mis- 
conceptions when  its  true  significance  is  brought  to  light. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  idea  thus  made  determinative  of  motions 
in  matter  is  that  of  a  yellow  dog.  Shall  we  place  this  at  a  definite 
point  in  the  mist  of  moving  atoms  that  constitute  the  boy's  brain? 
Can  atoms  move  toward  it  and  away  from  it?  Can  they  touch  it? 
Can  it  move  from  place  to  place  ?  Is  it  spread  out  in  space  as  it 
seems  to  the  boy  to  be,  or  must  we  assume  it  to  be  a  mathematical 

1  "  If  feelings  are  causes,  of  course  their  effects  must  be  furtherances  and  check- 
ings of  internal  cerebral  motions,  of  which  in  themselves  we  are  entirely  without 
knowledge.  It  is  probable  that  for  years  to  come  we  shall  have  to  infer  what 
happens  in  the  brain  either  from  our  feelings  or  from  motor  effects  which  we  observe. 
The  organ  will  be  for  us  a  sort  of  vat  in  which  feelings  and  motions  somehow  go  on 
stewing  together,  and  in  which  innumerable  things  happen  of  which  we  catch  but 
the  statistical  result.  Why  under  these  circumstances  we  should  be  asked  to 
forswear  the  language  of  our  childhood  I  cannot  well  imagine,  especially  as  it  is 
perfectly  compatible  with  the  language  of  physiology.  The  feelings  can  produce 
nothing  absolutely  new,  they  can  only  reinforce  and  inhibit  reflex  currents,  and 
the  original  organization  by  physiological  forces  of  these  in  paths  must  always  be 
the  groundwork  of  the  psychological  scheme. 

"...  The  nerve-currents,  coursing  through  the  cells  and  fibres,  must  in  this 
case  be  supposed  strengthened  by  the  fact  of  their  awaking  one  consciousness  and 
dampened  by  awaking  another.  How  such  reaction  of  the  consciousness  upon  the 
currents  may  occur  must  remain  at  present  unsolved. 

"...  Habitual  actions  are  certain,  and  being  in  no  danger  of  going  astray 
from  their  end  need  no  extraneous  help.  In  hesitant  action  there  seem  many  alter- 
native possibilities  of  final  nervous  discharge.  The  feeling  awakened  by  the  nascent 
excitement  of  each  alternative  nerve-tract  seems  by  its  attractive  or  repulsive 
quality  to  determine  whether  the  excitement  shall  abort  or  shall  become  complete. 
Where  indecision  is  great,  as  before  a  dangerous  leap,  consciousness  is  agonizingly 
intense.  Feeling,  from  this  point  of  view,  may  be  likened  to  a  cross-section  of  the 
chain  of  nervous  discharge,  ascertaining  the  links  already  laid  down,  and  groping 
among  the  fresh  ends  presented  to  it  for  the  one  which  seems  best  to  fit  the  case." 
—  JAMES,  "Psychology,"  Chapter  V. 


The  Atomic  Self  283 

point  ?  If  it  cannot  lie  between  two  atoms,  approach  and  be 
approached,  touch  and  be  touched,  in  what  sense  can  it  be  declared 
to  be  present  ?  He  who  talks  vaguely  of  its  presence,  and  does 
not  raise  any  of  these  questions,  is  walking  in  thick  darkness  and 
is  unaware  of  that  fact.  He  dimly  conceives  ideas  to  be  material, 
just  as  the  plain  man  dimly  conceives  of  the  atomic  self  as  mate- 
rial. He  puts  them  in  space,  and  yet  he  would  shrink  from  the 
consequences  that  this  entails,  did  he  realize  what  those  conse- 
quences are. 

This  doctrine  that  ideas  may  be  used  to  patch  up  a  defective 
mechanism  does  not  need  to  be  discussed  at  great  length,  because 
it  differs  so  little,  in  any  point  that  need  concern  us  here,  from  the 
doctrine  of  the  atomic  self.  One  is  impressed,  in  studying  both 
the  original  doctrine  and  its  modification,  with  the  thought  that  it 
is  exceedingly  hard  for  the  human  mind  to  shake  itself  free  from 
materialistic  ways  of  thinking.  Some  of  those  who  have  been 
most  anxious  not  to  be  accounted  materialists  have  retained  the 
most  unmistakable  traces  of  materialistic  thought. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  AUTOMATON  THEORY :    ITS  GENESIS 

THUS  it  seems  clear  that  what  is  known  as  the  "  interaction  " 
theory  of  the  relation  of  mind  and  body  gains  what  plausibility  it 
possesses  from  the  covert  ascription  of  materiality  to  mind.  When 
this  is  made  apparent,  and  when  a  resolute  attempt  is  made  to 
remove  every  materialistic  element  from  the  notion  of  the  mind, 
then  it  also  becomes  clear  that  the  attempt  to  build  mind  into  the 
bodily  mechanism,  and  to  make  it,  at  least  for  the  time  being,  one 
of  its  constituent  parts,  is  nothing  less  than  absurd.  The  mind  is 
not  present  to  the  body  in  any  sense  that  would  permit  of  its  rill- 
ing a  gap  in  the  bodily  mechanism.  Interaction  becomes  a  mere 
word,  the  name  of  an  empty  nothing,  and  the  impulse  to  insist 
upon  it  dies  of  inanition.  No  clear-minded  man  can  take  pleasure 
in  maintaining  that  there  is  interaction  between  mind  and  body, 
if  the  word  "  interaction  "  suggests  to  his  mind  nothing  at  all. 

But  if  we  dismiss  the  doctrine  of  interaction  as  being  rank 
materialism  in  disguise,  and  hence  worthy  of  reprobation,  what 
remains  to  us  ?  There  remains,  for  one  thing,  the  doctrine  of  the 
physical  automaton  with  parallel  mental  states,  and  this  has  been 
the  refuge  of  many  who  have  felt  themselves  forced  out  of  the 
position  occupied  by  the  interactionist.  What  can  be  said  for  and 
against  this  doctrine  ? 

That  the  human  mind  is  related  to  the  human  body  as  it  is 
not  related  to  other  material  things  was  discovered  by  man  long 
before  there  was  a  science  of  psychology.  But  the  problem  of  the 
mind's  more  definite  localization  —  to  use  a  materialistic  form  of 
expression  somewhat  justified  by  custom  —  was  and  had  to  remain 
an  insoluble  problem  until  men  gained  some  definite  knowledge 
of  the  structure  of  the  human  body  and  of  the  mode  of  function- 
ing of  its  various  parts.  Thus,  at  the  time  of  their  promulgation, 
no  authoritative  denial  could  be  given  to  the  Atomistic  doctrine 
that  the  brain  is  the  seat  of  thought,  the  heart  of  anger,  and  the 

284 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Its  Genesis  285 

liver  of  desire ;  to  the  doctrine  of  Critias,  who  regarded  the  blood 
as  the  seat  and  substratum  of  the  soul ;  to  that  of  Plato,  who  dis- 
tributed his  tripartite  soul  in  the  head,  the  chest,  and  the  region 
below  the  diaphragm ;  or  to  that  of  Aristotle,  who  relegated  the 
brain  to  a  subordinate  place  in  the  animal  economy  and  found  the 
heart  to  be  the  seat  of  sensations. 

Not  until  the  beginnings  of  modern  philosophy  and  that  re- 
vival of  the  study  of  nature  which  has  resulted  in  the  several 
sciences  as  we  now  have  them,  did  man  come  into  the  possession 
of  such  information  as  would  justify  him  in  definitely  and  finally 
rejecting  the  one  or  the  other  of  the  above-mentioned  doctrines,  and 
in  expecting  all  those  who  follow  his  arguments  to  be  compelled 
by  their  cogency  to  accept  his  conclusions.  In  place  of  conflicting 
opinions,  more  or  less  arbitrarily  taken  up  upon  a  basis  of  slender 
and  uncertain  evidence,  there  has  emerged  a  body  of  facts  that  it 
is  not  too  much  to  call  scientific,  and  that  we  find  presented  in 
substantially  the  same  form  by  all  reputable  writers  upon  physiol- 
ogy and  physiological  psychology.  It  remains  to  render  our 
knowledge  upon  the  subject  more  complete  and  definite,  and  it 
also  remains  to  interpret  its  significance,  but  it  seems  to  be  no 
longer  an  open  question  whether  the  whole  edifice  which  has 
been  built  up  by  successive  generations  of  investigators  shall 
be  allowed  to  stand,  or  shall  be  torn  down  in  order  to  make 
room  for  a  quite  different  structure.  One  may  hold  tenta- 
tively some  of  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by  Goltz,  or  Munk, 
or  Ferrier,  or  Luciani,  and  may  be  strongly  inclined  to  wait  for 
more  light  before  turning  them  into  articles  of  faith ;  but  no 
reasonable  man  can  in  our  day  revert  to  the  doctrine  of  Aristotle, 
or  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  Atomists. 

The  honor  of  having  laid  enduring  foundations  for  this  edifice 
must  be  accorded  to  Descartes,  whose  careful  study  of  the  struc- 
ture of  the  human  body  revealed  to  his  discriminating  eye  that 
it  is  a  mechanism  of  vast  complexity  and  of  the  most  perfect 
adjustment.  In  particular  he  comprehended  the  significance  of 
the  brain  as  a  central  organ  and  the  meaning  of  the  distribution 
of  the  nerves  which  connect  it  with  every  part  of  the  body.  He 
writes :  — 

"  We  must  know,  therefore,  that  the  human  soul,  although  it 
is  united  with  the  whole  body,  has,  nevertheless,  its  chief  seat 
in  the  brain,  in  which  alone  it  not  only  understands  and  imagines, 


286  Mind  and  Matter 

but  also  feels;  and  this  by  means  of  the  nerves  which,  like 
threads,  extend  from  the  brain  to  all  the  other  members,  and 
which  are  so  connected  with  them,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  touch  any  part  of  the  human  body  without  setting  in  motion 
some  nerve-endings  scattered  through  it,  with  the  result  that 
their  motion  is  transferred  to  the  other  extremities  of  these 
nerves,  which  are  collected  together  in  the  brain  around  the 
seat  of  the  soul,  as  I  have  explained  at  sufficient  length  in  the 
fourth  chapter  of  my  Dioptrics.  Now  the  motions  thus  excited 
in  the  brain  by  the  nerves  affect  in  divers  ways  the  soul  or  mind 
intimately  united  with  the  brain,  according  to  their  divers  natures. 
And  these  various  affections  of  the  mind,  or  the  thought  im- 
mediately resulting  from  these  motions,  are  called  sense-percep- 
tions, or,  in  common  parlance,  sensations."1 

"  It  is  clearly  proved  that  the  soul  perceives  what  happens  to 
the  body  in  each  of  the  members,  not  in  so  far  as  it  is  in  each  of 
the  members,  but  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  in  the  brain,  and  by  means 
of  the  nerves.  For,  in  the  first  place,  various  maladies  which 
affect  the  brain  alone  deprive  us  of  all  sensation  or  disorder  sen- 
sation ;  just  as  sleep,  which  is  only  in  the  brain,  daily  deprives  us 
in  great  part  of  our  power  of  perception,  which  is  afterwards  re- 
stored when  we  wake.  In  the  second  place,  though  the  brain 
be  uninjured,  if  only  the  nervous  paths  extending  to  it  from  the 
external  members  be  obstructed,  the  perception  of  those  members  is 
lost.  Finally,  pain  is  sometimes  felt  as  though  it  were  in  certain 
members  in  which  there  is  no  cause  of  pain,  while  there  is  such 
cause  in  certain  others  through  which  pass  the  nerves  extending 
from  the  former  to  the  brain.  This  last  fact  may  be  illustrated  by 
numberless  experiments,  but  here  it  is  sufficient  to  cite  one.  A 
certain  maiden  whose  hand  was  badly  diseased  was  blindfolded 
whenever  the  surgeon  came,  that  she  might  not  be  distressed  by 
the  sight  of  the  dressing  of  the  sore.  After  some  days  her  arm 
was  amputated  as  far  up  as  the  elbow,  because  gangrene  had 
spread  in  it,  and  cloths  were  put  in  place  of  the  arm,  so  as 
to  keep  her  in  complete  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  she  was  de- 
prived of  it.  Nevertheless,  she  kept  complaining  that  she  felt 
various  pains,  now  in  one,  now  in  another,  of  the  fingers  of  the 
hand  that  had  been  cut  off.  It  is  plain  that  this  could  not  have 
happened,  were  it  not  that  the  nerves,  which  formerly  ran  from 
1  "Principia  Philosophise,"  IV,  189. 


The  Automaton  Theory :    Its  Genesis  287 

the  brain  to  the  hand,  and  which  after  the  operation  terminated 
in  the  arm  at  the  elbow,  were  there  set  in  motion  in  the  same 
manner  as  they  formerly  had  to  be  set  in  motion  in  the  hand  in 
order  to  impress  upon  the  soul  residing  in  the  brain  the  perception 
of  an  ache  in  this  or  that  finger."  1 

The  brain,  then,  is,  in  an  especial  sense,  the  organ  of  conscious- 
ness. Messages  are  brought  to  it  from  the  various  members,  and, 
when  it  is  affected  in  certain  ways,  the  soul  has  perceptions.  Nor 
is  it  necessary  to  suppose  that,  when  an  object  is  perceived,  there 
is  an  image  of  the  object  formed  in  the  brain,  and  that  this  is  con- 
templated by  the  soul.  The  motion  in  the  brain  is  quite  different 
from  the  perception  of  the  object.2  And  just  as  a  message 
brought  along  a  nerve  to  the  brain  is  the  necessary  antecedent 
of  sensation  or  perception,  so  a  message  sent  from  the  brain  along 
a  nerve  is  the  necessary  antecedent  of  every  movement  in  the 
muscles.3  Some  of  the  movements  in  the  muscles  are  initiated 
by  the  soul,  which  inclines  the  little  pineal  gland  in  the  brain 
in  this  direction  or  in  that,  and  thus  sends  out  the  appropriate 
message  to  the  muscles,4  but  many  movements  may  take  place 
which  are  not  thus  initiated :  — 

"  I  have  explained  in  my  Dioptrics  how  all  visual  objects  are 
revealed  to  us  only  because  they  set  up  a  local  disturbance,  by 
means  of  the  transparent  bodies  which  are  between  them  and  us, 
first  in  the  little  threads  of  the  optic  nerves  which  are  at  the 
back  of  the  eyes,  and  after  that  in  the  parts  of  the  brain  whence 
these  nerves  come ;  and  they  set  these  in  motion  in  as  many  dif- 
ferent ways  as  they  cause  us  to  see  differences  in  the  objects.  I 
have  also  explained  that  it  is  not  the  very  movements  which 
take  place  in  the  eye,  but  those  which  take  place  in  the  brain, 
that  represent  these  objects  to  the  soul.  In  the  same  way  it  is 
easy  to  conceive  that  sounds,  odors,  tastes,  heat,  pain,  hunger, 
thirst,  and  in  general  all  the  objects,  whether  of  our  other  ex- 
ternal senses  or  of  our  internal  appetites,  also  excite  some  move- 
ment in  our  nerves,  which  passes  along  them  to  the  brain.  And 
these  divers  movements  of  the  brain,  besides  causing  our  soul 
to  perceive  divers  feelings,  can  also  bring  it  about  without  the 
intervention  of  the  soul  that  the  spirits  take  their  course  toward 
certain  muscles  rather  than  toward  others,  and  thus  move  our 

1  "  Principia  Philosophise,"  IV,  196.  2  "  Dioptrique,"  Discours  Quatri6mc3. 

3  "  Les  Passions  de  TAme,"  Art.  11.          4  Ibid.,  Art.  24. 


288  Mind  and  Matter 

members.  In  proof  of  this,  I  cite  one  example.  If  some  one 
brings  his  hand  quickly  toward  our  eyes,  as  though  with  the  in- 
tention of  striking  us,  we,  although  we  know  him  to  be  our  friend 
and  to  be  doing  it  merely  by  way  of  jest,  and  are  sure  that  he  will 
take  care  to  do  us  no  harm,  nevertheless  find  it  difficult  to 
avoid  closing  our  eyes.  This  shows  that  the  action  takes  place 
without  the  intervention  of  the  soul,  for  it  is  against  our  will, 
which  is  the  only  or,  at  least,  the  principal  action  of  the  soul. 
It  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  mechanism  of  our  body  is  such  that 
the  movement  of  the  hand  toward  our  eyes  excites  another  move- 
ment in  our  brain,  and  this  conducts  the  animal  spirits  into  the 
muscles  which  make  the  eyelids  fall."  l 

Such  movements  are  performed  by  the  body  automatically,  and 
they  are  sufficiently  numerous.  Breathing,  walking,  eating,  and, 
indeed,  all  the  movements  which  we  have  in  common  with  the 
brutes  may  be  thus  automatic.  They  are  due  to  the  mechanism 
of  the  body,  just  as  the  movement  of  a  watch  is  due  to  its  spring 
and  to  the  shape  of  its  wheels.2  And  since  such  movements  do 
not  require  the  intervention  of  the  soul,  it  is  unnecessary  to  assume 
that  creatures  capable  of  such  movements  alone  have  conscious- 
ness of  any  sort— they  are  bare  machines,  and  are  incapable  of 
thought  and  feeling.  It  is  a  mere  prejudice  that  leads  us  to 
attribute  consciousness  to  the  brutes. 

There  are,  however,  certain  actions  that  cannot  be  performed  by 
the  body  automatically.  These  are  initiated  by  the  soul  resident 
in  the  little  pineal  gland,  which  directs  the  flow  of  the  animal 
spirits,  and  possesses  control  over  the  mechanism  of  the  body.  The 
soul  must  obtain  its  information  from  the  messages  brought  to  it 
along  the  nerves,  and  even  its  power  to  recollect  past  experiences 
is  due  to  traces  left  by  past  movements  of  the  spirits  in  the  brain ; 3 
in  so  far  it  is  dependent  upon  the  mechanism  of  the  body.  But  it 
may  modify  the  movements  which  would  take  place  in  the  body 
if  left  to  itself,  and  a  human  body  joined  to  a  human  soul  cannot 
be  regarded  as  a  mere  machine.  It  is  a  machine  with  an  intelli- 
gent governor. 

We  have  seen4  that  the  Cartesian  soul,  seated  at  a  definite 
point  in  the  brain,  and  engaged  in  pushing  and  being  pushed, 
comes  perilously  near  to  being  a  mere  lump  of  matter,  a  part  of 

1  "  Les  Passions  de  1'Ame,"  Art.  13.  2IMcL,   Art.  16. 

3  Ibid.,  Art.  4'2.  *  See  the  preceding  chapter. 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Its   Genesis  289 

the  machine  that  it  is  supposed  to  control.  Yet  Descartes  had 
maintained  that  the  essence  of  matter  is  extension  and  the  essence 
of  the  soul  is  thought.  He  had  by  his  definitions  so  separated  the 
two  that  it  became  inconceivable  that  they  should  come  together 
in  such  a  way  as  to  form  one  whole.  The  difficulty  so  impressed  his 
successors  that  they  were  impelled  to  deny  the  direct  interaction 
of  soul  and  body.  How  can  that  which  is  not  body  either  push 
or  be  pushed  ?  It  remained  to  account  for  the  apparent  interaction 
of  soul  and  body  in  some  other  way,  and  several  ways  were  sug- 
gested. 

The  Occasionalist  maintained  that,  no  direct  interaction  being 
possible,  on  occasion  of  this  or  that  volition  God  calls  forth  the 
appropriate  motion  in  matter;  and  in  adopting  this  doctrine  he 
took  refuge  in  what  Spinoza  calls  "  the  asylum  of  ignorance." 
The  advocate  of  Predetermined  Harmony  held  that  mind  and  body 
are  related  as  are  two  clocks,  whose  wheels  revolve  independently, 
but  which  have  been  so  adjusted  that  their  motions  exactly 
correspond. 

Both  of  these  suggestions  were  of  the  sort  that  might  be 
expected  to  appeal  more  forcibly  to  the  mediaeval  mind  than  to 
the  modern  mind ;  but  the  same  cannot  be  said  of  the  solution  of 
the  problem  propounded  by  Spinoza,  that  strange  genius  who  found 
it  possible  to  combine  a  mediaeval  metaphysic  with  a  clear  appre- 
ciation of  the  significance  of  the  new  mechanical  philosophy.  He 
thinks  that  we  may  comprehend  clearly  how  it  is  that  the  body 
cannot  determine  the  mind  to  think,  nor  the  mind  determine  the 
body  to  motion  and  rest,  if  we  will  but  consider  that  the  mind  and 
the  body  are  one  and  the  same  thing  viewed  under  two  attributes, 
i.e.  viewed,  in  the  one  case,  under  the  attribute  thought,  and,  in 
the  other,  under  the  attribute  extension.  Body  may  determine 
changes  in  body,  and  thought  may  determine  changes  in  thought, 
but  a  thing  cannot  determine  itself,  and  mind  and  body  are  one  and 
the  same  thing.  There  is  not  interaction,  but  there  is  parallelism, 
and  "  the  order  of  the  things  done  and  suffered  by  our  body  is  by 
nature  the  same  as  the  order  of  the  actions  and  passions  of  the 
mind."  1 

"  These  arguments,"  he  continues,  "  leave  no  room  for  doubt, 
but  nevertheless  I  scarcely  think  I  can  induce  men  to  weigh  them 
with  an  unprejudiced  mind,  unless  I  support  the  doctrine  by  an 
1  "Ethics,"  III,  2,  scholium. 


290  Mind  and  Matter 

appeal  to  experience,  so  firmly  are  men  persuaded  that  the  body  is 
set  in  motion  and  is  brought  to  rest  solely  at  the  mind's  good  pleas- 
ure, and  performs  a  multitude  of  actions  which  depend  only  on 
the  mind's  choice  and  ability  to  think.  For  as  yet  no  one  has 
determined  of  what  the  body  is  capable  ;  in  other  words,  experience 
has  as  yet  taught  no  one  what  the  body  can  do  according  to  the 
laws  of  nature,  considered  merely  as  corporeal  nature,  and  what  it 
cannot  do  unless  it  be  determined  by  the  mind.  For  no  one  has 
as  yet  a  sufficiently  accurate  knowledge  of  the  structure  of  the  body 
to  be  able  to  explain  all  its  functions  ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact 
that  we  observe  in  brutes  many  actions  that  far  surpass  human 
sagacity,  and  that  somnambulists  do  a  great  many  things  while 
asleep  that  they  would  not  dare  to  do  when  awake ;  which  suffi- 
ciently proves  that  the  body,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  its 
own  nature  solely,  can  do  much  that  its  mind  wonders  at. 

"  Again,  no  one  knows  how  or  by  what  means  the  mind  moves 
the  body,  nor  how  many  degrees  of  motion  it  can  impart  to  the 
body,  and  how  swiftly  it  can  move  it.  Hence  it  follows  that  when 
men  say  that  this  or  that  action  of  the  body  has  its  source  in  the 
mind,  which  controls  the  body,  they  do  not  know  what  they  are 
saying,  and  merely  confess  in  high-sounding  words  that  they  are 
ignorant  of  the  true  cause  of  that  action  and  do  not  wonder  at  it. 

"  They  will  object  that,  whether  they  do  or  do  not  know  by 
what  means  the  mind  moves  the  body,  yet  they  know  by  experi- 
ence that  if  the  human  mind  were  not  capable  of  thinking,  the 
body  would  be  motionless.  Furthermore,  that  they  know  by  ex- 
perience that  it  is  within  the  power  of  the  mind  alone  to  speak 
or  to  remain  silent,  and  to  do  many  other  things  which,  conse- 
quently, they  believe  to  depend  upon  the  mind's  decree. 

"  But,  as  regards  the  first  point,  I  ask  those  who  urge  this 
objection,  whether  experience  does  not  also  show  that  if  the  body 
remains  motionless,  the  mind  is  incapable  of  thinking?  For  when 
the  body  comes  to  rest  in  sleep,  the  mind  slumbers  with  it,  and  has 
not  the  power  of  thinking  it  has  when  awake.  Again,  I  think 
every  one  knows  by  experience  that  the  mind  is  not  always  equally 
capable  of  thinking  about  the  same  object :  but,  according  as  the 
body  is  the  better  adapted  to  having  the  image  of  this  or  that 
object  excited  in  it,  the  mind  is  the  more  capable  of  contemplat- 
ing this  or  that  object.  It  will  be  objected  that  one  cannot,  from 
the  laws  of  nature,  when  nature  is  regarded  merely  as  corporeal, 


The  Automaton  Theory :    Its   Genesis  291 

deduce  the  causes  of  buildings,  paintings,  and  things  of  this  sort, 
which  are  due  solely  to  human  skill,  nor  could  the  human  body, 
unless  it  were  determined  and  guided  by  the  mind,  build  a  temple. 
But  I  have  already  shown  that  those  who  reason  thus  do  not 
know  what  the  body  can  do,  or  what  can  be  deduced  from  a  mere 
contemplation  of  its  nature,  and  that  they  do  know  by  experience 
that  a  great  manj^  things  take  place  merely  according  to  the  laws 
of  nature  that  they  never  would  have  believed  could  take  place 
except  under  the  direction  of  the  mind.  Such  are  the  acts  per- 
formed by  somnambulists  during  sleep  —  acts  which  they  them- 
selves wonder  at  when  awake.  I  would,  moreover,  call  attention 
to  the  structure  of  the  human  body,  which  vastly  surpasses  in 
ingenuity  anything  constructed  by  human  skill,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  truth,  proved  above,  that  an  infinity  of  things  must  follow 
from  nature  considered  under  any  attribute  whatever. 

"  And  as  regards  the  second  point,  surely  the  condition  of 
human  affairs  would  be  much  more  satisfactory  if  it  were  as  much 
within  man's  power  to  be  silent  as  to  speak.  But  experience 
gives  sufficient  and  more  than  sufficient  proof  of  the  fact  that 
there  is  nothing  less  under  a  man's  control  than  his  tongue,  nor  is 
there  anything  of  which  a  man  is  less  capable  than  of  restraining 
his  impulses.  This  is  the  reason  that  most  persons  believe  that 
we  are  free  only  in  doing  those  things  to  which  we  are  impelled 
by  slight  desires,  for  the  impulse  to  do  such  things  can  be  easily 
checked  by  the  memory  of  some  other  thing  of  which  we  often 
think ;  but  that  we  are  by  no  means  free  in  doing  those  things  to 
which  we  are  impelled  by  strong  emotion,  which  cannot  be  checked 
by  the  memory  of  some  other  thing.  But  had  they  not  had  expe- 
rience of  the  fact  that  we  do  many  things  which  we  afterward 
regret,  and  that  we  often,  when  we  are  harassed  by  conflicting 
emotions,  see  the  better  and  follow  the  worse,  nothing  would  pre- 
vent them  from  believing  that  we  are  always  free  in  our  actions. 
Thus  the  infant  believes  that  it  desires  milk  of  its  own  free  will ; 
the  angry  child  that  it  is  free  in  seeking  revenge ;  and  the  timid 
that  it  is  free  in  taking  to  flight.  Again,  a  drunken  man  believes 
that  he  says  of  his  own  free  will  things  he  afterward,  when  sober, 
wishes  he  had  left  unsaid  ;  so  also  an  insane  man,  a  garrulous 
woman,  a  child,  and  very  many  others  of  the  sort  believe  they 
speak  of  their  own  free  will,  while,  nevertheless,  they  are  unable 
to  control  their  impulse  to  talk.  Thus  experience  itself  shows, 


292  Mind  and  Matter 

no  less  clearly  than  reason,  that  men  think  themselves  free  only 
because  they  are  conscious  of  their  actions  and  ignorant  of  the 
causes  which  determine  them.  It  shows,  moreover,  that  the  mind's 
decisions  are  nothing  but  its  impulses,  which  vary  with  the  vary- 
ing condition  of  the  body.  For  every  one  regulates  his  actions  as 
his  emotions  dictate ;  and  those  who  are  harassed  by  conflicting 
emotions  do  not  know  what  they  want ;  while  those  who  are  not 
controlled  by  any  emotion  are  driven  hither  and  thither  by  the 
slightest  motive.  All  this  certainly  shows  clearly  that  the  mind's 
decision,  as  well  as  its  impulse  and  the  determining  of  the  body, 
all  are  by  nature  simultaneous,  or  rather  all  are  one  and  the  same 
thing,  which,  when  it  is  considered  under  and  expressed  by  the 
attribute  thought,  we  call  a  decision,  and  when  it  is  considered 
under  the  attribute  extension,  and  deduced  from  the  laws  of  motion 
and  rest,  we  call  a  determining." 

The  reader  will  see  that,  in  passing  from  Descartes  to  Spinoza 
we  make  a  long  step  in  advance.  By  an  ingenious  suggestion,  a 
place  among  existing  things  seems  to  be  found  for  the  human 
mind  without  turning  it  into  a  quasi-material  something  and  inter- 
jecting it  as  a  stop-gap  between  two  motions  in  matter.  Why  the 
course  of  ideas  should  run  parallel  with  the  series  of  changes 
which  take  place  in  the  body  seems,  at  first  blush,  at  least,  to  be 
explained  by  the  fact  that  the  ideas  are  but  another  side,  so  to 
speak,  of  such  changes. 

And  to  one  who  has  taken  this  step  it  is  quite  possible  to 
accept  all  that  Descartes  says  of  the  mechanism  of  the  body  and 
yet  repudiate  the  Cartesian  doctrine,  shocking  to  the  mind  of  the 
natural  man,  that  the  brutes  are  mere  machines  without  conscious- 
ness. No  man  whose  mind  has  not  been  perverted  by  philosophic 
theory  can  believe  that  his  dog  does  not  think  and  feel,  if  only  in 
a  humble  way.  If  all  the  changes  in  the  human  body  can  be 
explained  by  a  reference  to  matter  in  motion  alone,  and,  neverthe- 
less, a  man  can  be  conscious,  it  follows  that  automatism  does  not 
necessarily  imply  unconsciousness.  Of  course,  the  distribution  of 
minds  in  nature  remains  a  question  to  be  investigated,  and  one 
may  well  ask  oneself  where  one  may  infer  mind  and  where  one 
may  not.  Spinoza  himself  regarded  all  nature  as  animated,1  and 
we  may  or  may  not  elect  to  follow  him  in  this,  even  if  we  accept 
his  doctrine  of  parallelism  in  a  general  way. 
1  "Ethics,"  II,  13,  scholium. 


The  Automaton  Theory :   Its  Genesis  293 

The  problem  of  the  distribution  of  minds,  and  that  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  will  touched  upon  in  the  above  extract,  will  be  dis- 
cussed in  later  chapters.  It  is  enough  here  to  recognize  that  a 
place  seems  to  have  been  made  for  mind  which  is  not  a  place  in  an 
offensive  sense  of  the  word,  —  a  place  which  can  be  occupied  only 
by  a  material  thing,  —  and  also  that  a  peculiar  and  intimate  rela- 
tion has  been  established  between  the  human  mind  and  the  human 
body.  One  must  add,  however,  as  touching  this  last  point,  that 
Spinoza,  although  he  was  quite  familiar  with  the  results  of  Des- 
cartes' investigations,  nevertheless  uniformly  dwells  upon  the  rela- 
tion of  mind  and  body,  and  not  upon  the  relation  of  mind  and 
brain.1  The  beginnings  of  the  science  of  cerebral  physiology  do 
not  appear  to  have  impressed  him  greatly,  apparently  because  of 
his  doctrine  of  the  universal  distribution  of  mind  —  not  the  first 
instance  in  which  a  prepossession  in  favor  of  some  philosophical 
theory  has  blinded  one  to  the  significance  of  scientific  discoveries. 

I  have  set  forth  at  some  length  the  argument  of  Descartes  and 
the  solution  offered  by  Spinoza  of  the  problem  he  raises,  because 
the  two  appear  in  combination  in  the  modern  doctrine  of  the  physi- 
cal automaton  with  parallel  mental  states,  and  because  one  can 
scarcely  do  full  justice  to  both  aspects  of  that  doctrine  until  one 
knows  how  they  came  to  take  their  place  in  the  evolution  of  specu- 
lative thought. 

Some  things  to  which  Descartes  pinned  his  faith  have  disap- 
peared from  modern  physiological  theory.  The  animal  spirits, 
which  ran  along  the  nerves  from  the  periphery  of  the  body  to 
the  brain,  and  from  the  brain  to  the  muscles,  have  been  deprived 
of  their  role.  The  pineal  gland  has  lost  its  preeminent  distinction 
as  the  soul's  seat,  and  has  sunk  into  an  insignificance  little  better 
than  that  of  a  pimple.  The  cerebral  cortex  has  assumed  a  new 
importance,  and  certain  parts  of  it  have  been  found  to  be  more 
intimately  concerned  in  certain  sensory  and  motor  functions  than 
other  parts.  An  array  of  facts  has  been  marshalled,  pathological 
and  experimental,  which  has  made  the  whole  subject  of  the  locali- 
zation of  consciousness  (may  I  be  permitted  the  phrase?)  more 
bewildering  than  it  seemed  to  be  at  an  earlier  age,  when  the  only 
mystery  which  remained  to  be  fathomed  appeared  to  be  that  of  the 
interaction  of  the  soul  with  "  the  little  gland  in  the  midst  of  the 
brain."  The  study  of  the  hypnotic  and  other  allied  states  has 

1  "Ethics,"  II,  passim. 


294  Mind  and  Matter 

resulted  in  the  emergence  of  the  problem  of  conceiving  of  two  or 
more  mutually  exclusive  consciousnesses  as  connected  with  the 
one  brain.  Finally,  the  decapitated  frog,  with  its  seemingly  pur- 
posive actions,  and  experiments  performed  upon  other  mutilated 
animals,  as  well  as  certain  pathological  phenomena  observed  in 
human  beings,  have  suggested  that,  although  the  consciousness  of 
consciousnesses,  that  one  which  we  commonly  have  in  mind  when 
we  speak  of  the  consciousness  of  this  or  that  animal,  is  to  be 
referred  to  the  cerebral  cortex,  yet  there  may  be  other  conscious- 
nesses of  a  more  or  less  rudimentary  sort  connected  with  lower 
nervous  centres  in  the  same  animal.  The  whole  subject  has 
become  vastly  more  complex  than  it  was  when  Descartes  wrote, 
and  yet,  barring  the  jump  at  a  given  point  from  brain  to  mind  and 
from  mind  to  brain,  the  modern  doctrine  differs  only  in  detail  from 
the  Cartesian.  The  science  of  cerebral  physiology  has  advanced, 
but  it  still  rests  upon  the  basis  laid  down  for  it  by  Descartes. 

Of  some  of  these  differences  in  detail  it  will  be  necessary 
to  speak  when  I  come  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  distribution 
of  minds  in  nature.  Meanwhile,  it  is  well  to  notice  that  not  all 
of  those  who  have  followed  the  advance  of  science  have  clearly 
appreciated  the  significance  of  the  Spinozistic  suggestion  of  the 
parallelism  of  mind  and  body.  They  remain  semi-Cartesian  in 
their  view  of  the  relation  of  mind  and  body. 

This  is  evidently  true  of  those  somewhat  unreflective  material- 
ists who  speak  of  consciousness  as  a  "secretion  "  or  as  a  "  function  " 
of  the  brain.  For  them  the  soul  has  been  ejected  from  its  place  in 
the  pineal  gland,  but  it  still  holds  a  place  in  the  world  of  matter 
and  motion  under  an  assumed  name.  And  the  same  may  be  said 
of  some  who  are  not  willing  to  call  themselves  materialists,  and 
yet  slip  unconsciously  into  a  similar  error.  Of  these  I  cannot  cite 
a  better  example  than  Professor  Huxley,  who  has  made  a  careful 
study  of  the  Cartesian  doctrine,  and  shows  himself  to  be  in  much 
sympathy  with  it.  He  writes  :  — 

"But  though  we  may  see  reason  to  disagree  with  Descartes' 
hypothesis  that  brutes  are  unconscious  machines,  it  does  not  follow 
that  he  was  wrong  in  regarding  them  as  automata  ;  and  the  view 
that  they  are  such  conscious  machines  is  that  which  is  implicitly, 
or  explicitly,  adopted  by  most  persons.  When  we  speak  of  the 
actions  of  the  lower  animals  being  guided  by  instinct  and  not  by 
reason,  what  we  really  mean  is  that,  though  they  feel  as  we  do, 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Its  Genesis  295 

yet  their  actions  are  the  results  of  their  physical  organization.  We 
believe,  in  short,  that  they  are  machines,  one  part  of  which  (the 
nervous  system)  not  only  sets  the  rest  in  motion,  and  coordinates 
its  movements  in  relation  with  changes  in  surrounding  bodies,  but 
is  provided  with  special  apparatus,  the  function  of  which  is  the 
calling  into  existence  of  those  states  of  consciousness  which  are 
termed  sensations,  emotions,  and  ideas.  I  believe  that  this  gen- 
erally accepted  view  is  the  best  expression  of  the  facts  at  present 
known. 

"  It  is  experimentally  demonstrable  —  any  one  who  cares  to  run 
a  pin  into  himself  may  perform  a  sufficient  demonstration  of  the 
fact  —  that  a  mode  of  motion  of  the  nervous  system  is  the  immedi- 
ate antecedent  of  a  state  of  consciousness.  All  but  the  adherents 
of  '  Occasionalism,'  or  of  the  doctrine  of  '  Preestablished  Har- 
mony '  (if  any  such  now  exist),  must  admit  that  we  have  as  much 
reason  for  regarding  the  mode  of  motion  of  the  nervous  system  as 
the  cause  of  the  state  of  consciousness,  as  we  have  for  regarding 
any  event  as  the  cause  of  another.  How  the  one  phenomenon 
causes  the  other  we  know,  as  much  or  as  little,  as  in  any  other  case 
of  causation  ;  but  we  have  as  much  right  to  believe  that  the  sensa- 
tion is  an  effect  of  the  molecular  change  as  we  have  to  believe 
that  motion  is  an  effect  of  impact ;  and  there  is  as  much  propriety 
in  saying  that  the  brain  evolves  sensation  as  there  is  in  saying 
that  an  iron  rod,  when  hammered,  evolves  heat. 

"  As  I  have  endeavored  to  show,  we  are  justified  in  supposing 
that  something  analogous  to  what  happens  in  ourselves  takes  place 
in  the  brutes,  and  that  the  affections  of  their  sensory  nerves  give 
rise  to  molecular  changes  in  the  brain,  which  again  give  rise  to  or 
evolve  the  corresponding  states  of  consciousness.  Nor  can  there 
be  any  reasonable  doubt  that  the  emotions  of  brutes,  and  such 
ideas  as  they  possess,  are  similarly  dependent  upon  molecular 
brain  changes.  Each  sensory  impression  leaves  behind  a  record 
in  the  structure  of  the  brain  —  an  '  ideagenous '  molecule,  so  to 
speak,  which  is  competent,  under  certain  conditions,  to  reproduce, 
in  a  fainter  condition,  the  state  of  consciousness  which  corresponds 
with  that  sensory  impression;  and  it  is  these  'ideagenous  mole- 
cules '  which  are  the  physical  basis  of  memory. 

"  It  may  be  assumed,  then,  that  molecular  changes  in  the  brain 
are  the  causes  of  all  the  states  of  consciousness  of  brutes.  Is  there 
any  evidence  that  these  states  of  consciousness  may,  conversely. 


296  Mind  and  Matter 

cause  those  molecular  changes  which  give  rise  to  muscular  motion  ? 
I  see  no  such  evidence.  The  frog  walks,  hops,  swims,  and  goes 
through  his  gymnastic  performances  quite  as  well  without  con- 
sciousness, and  consequently  without  volition,  as  with  it ;  and  if  a 
frog,  in  his  natural  state,  possesses  anything  corresponding  with 
what  we  call  volition,  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  it  is  any- 
thing but  a  concomitant  of  the  molecular  changes  in  the  brain 
which  form  part  of  the  series  involved  in  the  production  of  motion. 

"  The  consciousness  of  brutes  would  appear  to  be  related  to  the 
mechanism  of  their  body  simply  as  a  collateral  product  of  its  work- 
ing, and  to  be  as  completely  without  any  power  of  modifying  that 
working  as  the  steam  whistle,  which  accompanies  the  work  of  a 
locomotive  engine  is  without  influence  upon  its  machinery.  Their 
volition,  if  they  have  any,  is  an  emotion  indicative  of  physical 
changes,  not  a  cause  of  such  changes. 

"...  It  is  quite  true  that,  to  the  best  of  my  judgment,  the 
argumentation  which  applies  to  brutes  holds  equally  good  of  men ; 
and.  therefore,  that  all  states  of  consciousness  in  us,  as  in  them,  are 
immediately  caused  by  molecular  changes  of  the  brain-substance. 
It  seems  to  me  that  in  men,  as  in  brutes,  there  is  no  proof  that  any 
state  of  consciousness  is  the  cause  of  change  in  the  motion  of  the 
matter  of  the  organism.  If  these  positions  are  well  based,  it  fol- 
lows that  our  mental  conditions  are  simply  the  symbols  in  con- 
sciousness of  the  changes  which  take  place  automatically  in  the 
organism ;  and  that,  to  take  an  extreme  illustration,  the  feeling 
we  call  volition  is  not  the  cause  of  a  voluntary  act,  but  the  symbol 
of  that  state  of  the  brain  which  is  the  immediate  cause  of  that  act. 
We  are  conscious  automata,  endowed  with  free  will  in  the  only 
intelligible  sense  of  that  much-abused  term,  —  inasmuch  as  in  many 
respects  we  are  able  to  do  as  we  like,  —  but  none  the  less  parts  of 
the  great  series  of  causes  and  effects  which,  in  unbroken  continuity, 
composes  that  which  is,  and  has  been,  and  shall  be  —  the  sum  of 
existence."1 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  man  who  believes  the  human  body  or 
the  body  of  the  brute  to  be  "  provided  with  special  apparatus,  the 
function  of  which  is  the  calling  into  existence  of  those  states  of 
consciousness  which  are  termed  sensations,  emotions,  and  ideas," 
and,  furthermore,  who  regards  such  states  of  consciousness  as 

1  On  the  Hypothesis  that  Animals  are  Automata,  and  its  History,  "Collected 
Essays,"  N.Y.,  1902,  Vol.  I,  pp.  237-244. 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Its  Genesis  297 

"  collateral  products  "  of  the  body's  working,  makes  the  relation 
of  mind  and  brain  much  the  same  as  that  of  the  saliva  and  the 
salivary  gland.  He  is  no  true  parallelist,  and  he  cannot  escape 
the  just  criticism  which  may  be  brought  against  the  materialist. 
He  may  differ  from  the  interactionist  in  refusing  to  regard  con- 
sciousness as  a  cause  of  bodily  motions ;  but  he  makes  it  an  effect 
of  physical  changes,  and  thus  assigns  to  it  a  place  in  the  chain  of 
causes  and  effects  which  make  up  the  life  history  of  the  physical 
universe. 

The  secretion  of  a  gland,  however,  is  not  and  cannot  be  a  mere 
effect.  When  once  produced,  it  does  not  simply  disappear  from 
the  universe  into  which  it  has  been  ushered,  and  leave  no  trace 
behind.  And  if  consciousness  has  such  a  place  in  the  material 
world,  it  ought  to  be  possible,  with  the  growth  of  science,  to  lay 
it  bare  to  direct  inspection,  to  capture  it  or  the  products  of  its 
decomposition,  and  investigate  such,  as  one  might  investigate  the 
structure  of  a  molecule.  Practical  difficulties  there  may  be  in 
such  an  investigation ;  but  theoretical  difficulties  there  surely  can- 
not be.  Are  we  not  dealing  with  a  material  product?  and  are  not 
all  material  products  open  to  direct  inspection,  except  when  they 
are  hidden  from  our  eyes  by  reason  of  their  excessive  minuteness, 
or  by  some  barrier  of  the  sort,  which  it  is  not  absurd  to  dream  of 
as  becoming  some  day  no  longer  a  barrier?  The  true  parallelist 
strongly  objects  to  any  doctrine  which  thus  obliterates,  even 
covertly,  the  distinction  between  mind  and  matter.  To  his 
doctrine,  in  its  modern  form,  we  will  now  turn.  It  is  suffi- 
ciently important  to  be  treated  in  separate  chapters. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  AUTOMATON   THEORY:  PARALLELISM 

IN  describing  the  modern  doctrine  of  the  physical  automaton 
with  parallel  psychical  states,  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  follow 
that  clearest  of  writers,  Professor  W.  K.  Clifford,  who  has  set  it 
forth  in  detail  in  his  lecture  on  "  Body  and  Mind."  l 

Professor  Clifford  points  out  that  there  are  sciences  which  have 
to  do  with  material  things,  inorganic  and  organic,  and  he  thinks 
that,  the  gulf  between  inorganic  or  organic  bodies  having  at  last 
been  firmly  bridged  over,  we  may  regard  ourselves  as  having  now 
one  united  science  of  physics,  which  has  to  do  with  matter  in  all 
its  forms.  With  this  science  he  contrasts  the  science  of  conscious- 
ness, which  deals  with  the  laws  of  mind,  and  he  asks  whether  it  is 
not  possible  to  construct  some  bridge  that  will  firmly  unite  the  two. 

That  this  bridge  may  not  break  down  like  those  which  philoso- 
phers have  made,  he  thinks  that  it  is  necessary  to  observe  with  great 
care  the  exact  difference  between  the  two  classes  of  facts,  material 
and  mental.  "If  we  confuse  the  two  things  together  to  begin 
with,"  he  writes,  "if  we  do  not  recognize  the  great  difference 
between  them,  we  shall  not  be  likely  to  find  any  explanation 
which  will  reduce  them  to  some  common  term.  The  first  thing, 
therefore,  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  realize  as  clearly  as  possible 
how  profound  the  gulf  is  between  the  facts  which  we  call  Physi- 
cal facts  and  the  facts  which  we  call  Mental  facts."  The  distinc- 
tion has  been  one  which  has  been  observed  from  the  earliest  times, 
for  even  primitive  man  has  ascribed  to  other  men  a  consciousness 
like  his  own.  But  primitive  man  has  connected  this  consciousness 
with  the  body  seen  in  dreams,  a  body  not  physical  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  and  not  made  of  ordinary  matter.  Such  a  body  he  has  called 
the  soul.  It  is  difficult  to  think  that  the  gross  material  body  can 
be  conscious,  but  when  one  has  come  to  believe  that  we  possess 
another  and  a  different  body,  of  the  nature  of  which  we  know 

1  "Lectures  and  Essays,"  London,  1879,  Vol.  II. 

298 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Parallelism  299 

little,  it  is  natural  to  make  it  responsible  for  the  consciousness 
which  we  cannot  help  attributing  to  other  men.  Thus  the  soul 
which  primitive  man,  and  those  who  have  followed  him,  have 
attributed  to  each  man,  is,  after  all,  a  material  thing  in  disguise. 
What  can  science  put  in  place  of  this  early  hypothesis  of  our 
savage  ancestors? 

In  developing  his  thought  Clifford  recognizes  Descartes  as  the 
great  discoverer  of  the  truth  that  the  nervous  system  is  that  part 
of  the  body  which  is  related  directly  to  the  mind,  and  he  quotes 
approvingly  the  series  of  propositions  in  which  Professor  Huxley 
sums  up  Descartes'  contribution  to  the  doctrine  of  mind  and  brain, 
expounding  them  in  the  light  of  modern  thought.  As  far  as  Des- 
cartes' argument  goes,  he  is  in  substantial  agreement  with  it :  the 
brain  is  the  organ  of  sensation,  thought,  and  emotion ;  the  move- 
ments of  animals  are  due  to  a  change  in  the  form  of  the  muscles, 
and  this  is  brought  about  by  a  message  from  the  brain  carried  along 
a  motor  nerve  ;  the  sensations  of  animals  are  due  to  messages  brought 
along  sensory  nerves  to  the  brain ;  messages  may  be  transmitted 
from  the  sensory  nerves,  through  the  brain,  to  the  motor  nerves, 
and  thus  cause  movement  of  muscle,  without,  or  even  contrary  to, 
volition ;  the  motion  of  any  portion  of  the  brain,  excited  by  the 
motion  of  a  sensory  nerve,  leaves  behind  it  a  readiness  to  be 
moved  in  the  same  way  in  that  part,  and  anything  which  resusci- 
tates the  motion  gives  rise  to  the  appropriate  feeling,  which  is 
the  physical  mechanism  of  memory.  In  all  this  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  change  a  word  here  and  there ;  but  to  this  something 
should  be  added.  It  is  this:  — 

We  must  not  fail  to  note  that,  not  only  is  some  change  in  the 
matter  of  the  brain  the  invariable  antecedent,  but  some  other  change 
is  the  invariable  concomitant  of  sensation,  thought,  and  emotion. 
Furthermore,  not  only  does  the  motion  of  any  portion  of  the  brain, 
excited  by  the  motion  of  a  sensory  nerve,  leave  behind  it  a  readi- 
ness to  be  moved  in  the  same  way  in  that  part,  but  two  simul- 
taneous disturbances  set  up  in  the  brain  create,  in  some  way  or 
other,  a  link  between  them,  so  that,  when  one  of  these  disturb- 
ances is  set  up  afterward,  the  other  one  is  also  set  up. 

Again.  It  should  be  remarked  that  there  are  two  ways  in 
which  a  stimulus  coming,  let  us  say,  to  the  eye  can  be  made  to 
move  the  hand.  In  the  following  diagram  let  E  be  the  eye, 
R  and  B  the  two  masses  of  gray  matter  lying  at  the  base  of 


300  Mind  and  Matter 

the  brain  and  called,  respectively,  the  optic  thalami  and  the  cor- 
pora striata,  H  the  hand,  and  CO  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  It 
is  possible  for  the  light  impinging  upon  the  eye  to  send  a  mes- 
sage along  the  optic  nerve  to  the  optic  thalami,  and  that  message 
may  go  almost  direct  to  the  hand,  so  as  to  make  the  hand  move ; 
or  else  the  message  may  go  by  a  longer  route,  which  takes  more 
time.  If  an  action  takes  place  involuntarily,  without  any  effort 
of  the  will,  the  message  goes  from  the  eye  to  the  hand  along  the 


line  ERBH.  But  if  it  is  necessary  to  deliberate  about  the  action, 
to  call  in  the  exercise  of  the  will,  the  message  goes  around  the 
loop-line,  ERCCBH;  i.e.  from  the  eye  to  the  optic  thalami,  from 
them  to  the  cerebrum,  thence  to  the  corpora  striata,  and  so  through 
the  medulla  to  the  hand.1 

Finally,  besides  this  fact  of  a  message  going  from  one  part  of 
the  body  to  the  brain  and  coming  out  in  the  motion  of  some  other 
part  of  the  body,  there  is  another  thing  that  is  going  on  continu- 
ally, and  that  is  this :  there  is  a  faint  reproduction  of  some 
excitement  which  has  previously  existed  in  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres, and  which  calls  up  all  those  that  have  become  associated 
with  it.  It  is  continually  sending  down  faint  messages  which  do 
not  actually  tell  the  muscles  to  move,  but  which,  as  it  were,  begin 
to  tell  them  to  move.  If  a  man  is  in  a  brown  study,  with  his  eyes 
shut,  although  he  apparently  sees  and  feels  nothing  at  all,  there 
is  a  certain  action  going  on  inside  his  brain  which  is  not  sensation, 
but  is  like  it,  because  it  is  the  transmission  to  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres of  faint  messages  which  are  copies  of  previous  sensations. 
This  continuous  action  of  the  brain  depends  upon  the  blood 
supply. 

So  much  for  the  nervous  system  which  we  have  to  consider  in 
connection  with  the  mind.  What  may  we  say  touching  facts  of 
consciousness  ?  We  may  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  if  two  feel- 

1  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out  that  Clifford's  account  of  the  working  of 
the  nervous  mechanism  is  merely  diagrammatic.  It  is,  however,  sufficient  for  the 
purpose  in  hand. 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Parallelism  301 

ings  have  occurred  together,  and  one  of  them  afterward  occurs 
again,  it  is  very  likely  that  the  other  will  be  called  up  by  it.  That 
is  to  say,  two  states  of  consciousness  which  have  taken  place  at 
the  same  moment  produce  a  link  between  them,  so  that  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  one  calls  up  a  repetition  of  the  other.  Again,  we  find 
a  certain  train  of  facts  between  our  sensations  and  our  exertions. 
Having  seen  a  thing,  we  may  go  through  a  long  process  of  delib- 
eration as  to  what  we  shall  do  with  it.  On  the  other  hand,  by 
seeing  a  thing,  we  may  quite  suddenly  be  forced  into  doing  some- 
thing without  any  chance  of  deliberation  at  all.  Thus,  if  a  cab 
comes  unexpectedly  around  the  corner  of  the  street,  we  jump  out 
of  the  way,  without  stopping  to  think  that  it  is  a  desirable  thing 
to  get  out  of  the  way  of  a  cab.  Still  again,  there  is  the  fact  that 
even  when  there  is  no  actual  sensation  and  no  actual  exertion, 
there  may  be,  nevertheless,  a  long  train  of  facts  and  sensations 
which  hang  together.  There  may  be  faint  reproductions  of  sensa- 
tion which  are  less  vivid  than  the  sensations  themselves,  but 
which  form  a  series  of  pictures  of  sensations  which  pass  contin- 
ually before  my  mind.  And  there  will  be  faint  beginnings  of 
action,  which  latter  are  what  we  call  judgments. 

Having  laid  this  foundation  for  the  bridge  which  he  proposes 
to  build  between  physical  facts  and  mental,  Clifford  continues  as 
follows : J  — 

"  We  have  described  two  classes  of  facts ;  let  us  now  notice 
the  parallelism  between  them.  First,  we  have  these  two  parallel 
facts,  that  two  actions  of  the  brain  which  occur  together  form  a 
link  between  themselves,  so  that  the  one  being  called  up  the  other 
is  called  up ;  and  two  states  of  consciousness  which  occur  together 
form  a  link  between  them,  so  that  when  one  is  called  up  the 
other  is  called  up.  But  also  we  find  a  train  of  facts  between 
the  plvysical  fact  of  the  stimulus  of  light  going  into  the  eye  and 
the  physical  fact  of  the  motion  of  the  muscles.  Corresponding 
to  a  part  of  that  train,  we  have  found  a  train  of  facts  between 
sensation,  the  mental  fact  which  corresponds  to  a  message  arriving 
from  the  eye,  and  exertion,  the  mental  fact  which  corresponds  to 
the  motion  of  the  hand  by  a  message  going  out  along  the  nerves. 
And  we  have  found  a  correspondence  between  the  continuous 
action  of  the  brain  and  the  continuous  existence  of  consciousness 
apparently  independent  of  sensation  and  exertion. 

1  Op.  tit.,  pp.  50  ff. 


302  Mind  and  Matter 

"  But  let  us  look  at  this  correspondence  a  little  more  closely ; 
we  shall  find  that  there  are  one  or  two  things  which  can  be  estab- 
lished with  practical  certainty.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  the 
whole  of  the  physical  train  of  facts  which  corresponds  to  the 
mental  train  of  facts.  The  beginning  of  the  physical  train  con- 
sists of  light  going  into  the  eye  and  exciting  the  retina,  and  then 
of  that  wave  of  excitation  being  carried  along  the  optic  nerve  to 
the  ganglion.  For  all  we  know,  and  it  is  a  very  probable  thing, 
the  mental  fact  begins  here,  at  the  ganglion.  There  is  no  sensa- 
tion till  the  message  has  got  to  the  ganglion,  for  this  reason,  that 
if  you  press  the  optic  nerve  behind  the  eye  you  can  produce  the 
sensation  of  light.  It  is  like  tapping  a  telegraph,  and  sending  a 
message  which  has  not  come  from  the  station  from  which  it  ought 
to  have  come ;  nobody  at  the  other  end  can  tell  whether  it  has 
come  from  that  station  or  not.  The  optic  ganglion  cannot  tell 
whether  this  message  which  comes  along  the  nerve  has  come  from 
the  eye  or  is  the  result  of  a  tapping  of  the  telegraph,  whether  it 
is  produced  by  light  or  by  pressure  upon  the  nerve.  It  is  a  fact 
of  immense  importance  that  all  these  nerves  are  exactly  of  the 
same  kind.  The  only  thing  which  the  nerve  does  is  to  transmit 
a  message  which  has  been  given  to  it ;  it  does  not  transmit  a  mes- 
sage in  any  other  way  than  the  telegraph  wire  transmits  a  mes- 
sage—  that  is  to  say,  it  is  excited  at  certain  intervals,  and  the 
succession  of  these  intervals  determines  what  this  message  is,  not 
the  nature  of  the  excitation  which  passes  along  the  wire.  So  that, 
if  we  watched  the  nerve  excited  by  pressure,  the  message  going 
along  to  the  ganglion  would  be  exactly  the  same  as  if  it  were  the 
actual  sight  of  the  eye.  We  may  draw  from  this  the  conclusion 
that  the  mental  fact  does  not  begin  anywhere  before  the  optic 
ganglion.  Again,  a  man  who  has  had  one  of  his  legs  cut  off  can 
try  to  move  his  toes,  which  he  feels  as  if  they  were  still  there ; 
and  that  shows  that  the  consciousness  of  the  motor  impulse  which 
is  sent  out  along  the  nerve  does  not  go  to  the  end  to  see  whether 
it  is  obeyed  or  not.  The  only  way  in  which  we  know  whether 
our  orders,  given  to  any  parts  of  our  body,  are  obeyed,  is  by  hav- 
ing a  message  sent  back  to  say  that  they  are  obeyed.  If  I  tell 
my  hand  to  press  against  this  blackboard,  the  only  way  in  which 
I  know  that  it  does  press,  is  by  having  a  message  sent  back  by 
my  skin  to  say  that  it  is  pressed.  But  supposing  there  is  no  skin 
there,  I  can  have  the  exertion  that  precedes  the  action  without 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Parallelism  303 

actually  performing  it,  because  I  can  send  out  a  message,  and 
consciousness  stops  with  the  sending  of  the  message,  and  does  not 
know  anything  further.  So  that  the  mental  fact  is  somewhere  or 
other  in  the  region  ROOB  of  the  diagram,  and  does  not  include 
the  two  ends.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  the  whole  of  the  bodily 
fact  that  the  mental  fact  corresponds  to,  but  only  an  intermediate 
part  of  it.  If  it  just  passes  through  the  points  RB,  without 
going  round  the  loop  from  0  to  (7,  then  we  merely  have  the  sensa- 
tion that  something  has  taken  place  —  we  have  no  voice  in  the 
nature  of  it  and  no  choice  about  it.  If  it  has  gone  round  from 
C  to  (7,  we  have  a  much  larger  fact  —  we  have  that  fact  which  we 
call  choice,  or  the  exercise  of  volition.  We  may  conclude,  then,  — 
I  am  not  able  in  so  short  a  space  as  I  have  to  give  you  the  whole 
evidence  which  goes  to  an  assertion  of  this  kind ;  but  there  is 
evidence  which  is  sufficient  to  satisfy  any  competent  scientific 
man  of  this  day,  —  that  every  fact  of  consciousness  is  parallel  to 
some  disturbance  of  nerve  matter,  although  there  are  some  ner- 
vous disturbances  which  have  no  parallel  in  consciousness,  properly 
so  called,  that  is  to  say,  disturbances  of  my  nerves  may  exist  which 
have  no  parallel  in  my  consciousness. 

"  We  have  observed  two  classes  of  facts  and  the  parallelism 
between  them.  Let  us  next  observe  what  an  enormous  gulf  there 
is  between  these  two  classes  of  facts. 

"  The  state  of  a  man's  brain  and  the  actions  which  go  along 
with  it  are  things  which  every  other  man  can  perceive,  observe, 
measure,  and  tabulate ;  but  the  state  of  a  man's  own  consciousness 
is  known  to  him  only,  and  not  to  any  other  person.  Things 
which  appear  to  us  and  which  we  can  observe  are  called  objects  or 
phenomena.  Facts  in  a  man's  consciousness  are  not  objects  or 
phenomena  to  any  other  man ;  they  are  capable  of  being  observed 
only  by  him.  We  have  no  possible  ground,  therefore,  for  speaking 
of  another  man's  consciousness  as  in  any  sense  a  part  of  the  physical 
world  of  objects  or  phenomena.  It  is  a  thing  entirely  separate 
from  it ;  and  all  the  evidence  that  we  have  goes  to  show  that  the 
physical  world  gets  along  entirely  by  itself,  according  to  practically 
universal  rules.  That  is  to  say,  the  laws  which  hold  good  in  the 
physical  world  hold  good  everywhere  in  it  —  they  hold  good  with 
practical  universality,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  any- 
thing else  but  those  laws  in  order  to  account  for  any  physical  fact ; 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  anything  but  the  universal  laws  of 


304  Mind  and  Matter 

mechanics  in  order  to  account  for  the  motion  of  organic  bodies. 
The  train  of  physical  facts  between  the  stimulus  sent  into  the  eye, 
or  to  any  one  of  our  senses,  and  the  exertion  which  follows  it,  and 
the  train  of  physical  facts  which  goes  on  in  the  brain,  even  when 
there  is  no  stimulus  and  no  exertion,  —  these  are  perfectly  com- 
plete physical  trains,  and  every  step  is  fully  accounted  for  by 
mechanical  conditions.  In  order  to  show  what  is  meant  by  that, 
I  will  endeavor  to  explain  another  supposition  which  might  be 
made.  When  a  stimulus  comes  into  the  eye  there  is  a  certain 
amount  of  energy  transferred  from  the  ether,  which  fills  space,  to 
this  nerve ;  and  this  energy  travels  along  into  the  ganglion,  and 
sets  the  ganglion  into  a  state  of  disturbance  which  may  use  up 
some  energy  previously  stored  in  it.  The  amount  of  energy  is 
the  same  as  before  by  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy. 
That  energy  is  spread  over  a  number  of  threads  which  go  out  to 
the  brain,  and  it  comes  back  again  and  is  reflected  from  there.  It 
may  be  supposed  that  a  very  small  portion  of  energy  is  created  in 
that  process,  and  that  while  the  stimulus  is  going  around  the  loop- 
line  it  gets  a  little  push  somewhere,  and  then,  when  it  comes  back 
to  the  ganglion,  it  goes  away  to  the  muscle  and  sets  loose  a  store 
of  energy  in  the  muscle  so  that  it  moves  the  limb.  Now  the  ques- 
tion is,  Is  there  any  creation  of  energy  anywhere  ?  Is  there  any  part 
of  the  physical  progress  which  cannot  be  included  within  ordinary 
physical  laws  ?  It  has  been  supposed,  I  say,  by  some  people,  as  it 
seems  to  me  merely  by  a  confusion  of  ideas,  that  there  is,  at  some 
part  or  other  of  this  process,  a  creation  of  energy ;  but  there  is  no 
reason  whatever  why  we  should  suppose  this.  The  difficulty  in 
proving  a  negative  in  these  cases  is  similar  to  that  in  proving  a 
negative  about  anything  which  exists  on  the  other  side  of  the 
moon.  It  is  quite  true  that  I  am  not  absolutely  certain  that  the 
law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is  exactly  true ;  but  there  is  no 
more  reason  why  I  should  suppose  a  particular  exception  to  occur 
in  the  brain  than  anywhere  else.  I  might  just  as  well  assert  that 
whenever  anything  passes  over  the  Line,  when  it  goes  from  the 
north  side  of  the  Equator  to  the  south,  there  is  a  certain  creation 
of  energy,  as  that  there  is  a  creation  of  energy  in  the  brain.  If  1 
chose  to  say  that  the  amount  was  so  small  that  none  of  our  present 
measurements  could  appreciate  it,  it  would  be  difficult  or  indeed 
impossible  for  anybody  to  disprove  that  assertion ;  but  I  should  have 
no  reason  whatever  for  making  it.  There  being,  then,  an  absence 


The  Automaton  Theory:   Parallelism  305 

of  positive  evidence  that  the  conditions  are  exceptional,  the  reasons 
which  lead  us  to  assert  that  there  is  no  loss  of  energy  in  organic 
any  more  than  in  inorganic  bodies  are  absolutely  overwhelming. 
There  is  no  more  reason  to  assert  that  there  is  a  creation  of  energy 
in  any  part  of  an  organic  body,  because  we  are  not  absolutely  sure 
of  the  exact  nature  of  the  law,  than  there  is  reason,  because  we  do 
not  know  what  there  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon,  to  assert  that 
there  is  a  sky-blue  peacock  there  with  forty -five  eyes  in  his  tail. 

"  Therefore,  it  is  not  a  right  thing  to  say,  for  example,  that 
the  mind  is  a  force,  because  if  the  mind  were  a  force  we  should  be 
able  to  perceive  it.  I  should  be  able  to  perceive  your  mind  and  to 
measure  it,  but  I  cannot ;  I  have  absolutely  no  means  of  perceiving 
your  mind.  I  judge  by  analogy  that  it  exists,  and  the  instinct 
which  leads  me  to  come  to  that  conclusion  is  the  social  instinct,  as 
it  has  been  formed  in  me  by  generations  during  which  men  have  lived 
together ;  and  they  could  not  have  lived  together  unless  they  had 
gone  upon  that  supposition.  But  I  may  very  well  say  that  among 
the  physical  facts  which  go  along  at  the  same  time  with  mental 
facts  there  are  forces  at  work.  That  is  perfectly  true,  but  the  two 
things  are  on  two  utterly  different  platforms  —  the  physical  facts 
go  along  by  themselves,  and  the  mental  facts  go  along  by  them- 
selves. There  is  a  parallelism  between  them,  but  there  is  no 
interference  of  one  with  the  other.  Again,  if  anybody  says  that 
the  will  influences  matter,  the  statement  is  not  untrue,  but  it  is 
nonsense.  The  will  is  not  a  material  thing,  it  is  not  a  mode  of 
material  motion.  Such  an  assertion  belongs  to  the  crude  mate- 
rialism of  the  savage.  The  only  thing  which  influences  matter  is 
the  position  of  surrounding  matter  or  the  motion  of  surrounding 
matter.  It  may  be  conceived  that  at  the  same  time  with  every 
exercise  of  volition  there  is  a  disturbance  of  the  physical  laws ; 
but  this  disturbance,  being  perceptible  to  me,  would  be  a  physical 
fact  accompanying  the  volition,  and  could  not  be  the  volition 
itself,  which  is  not  perceptible  to  me.  Whether  there  is  such  a 
disturbance  of  the  physical  laws  or  not  is  a  question  of  fact  to 
which  we  have  the  best  of  reasons  for  giving  a  negative  answer ; 
but  the  assertion  that  another  man's  volition,  a  feeling  in  his  con- 
sciousness which  I  cannot  perceive,  is  part  of  the  train  of  physical 
facts  which  I  may  perceive,  —  this  is  neither  true  nor  untrue,  but 
nonsense ;  it  is  a  combination  of  words  whose  corresponding  ideas 
will  not  go  together. 


306  Mind  and  Matter 

"  Thus  we  are  to  regard  the  body  as  a  physical  machine  which 
goes  by  itself  according  to  a  physical  law,  that  is  to  say,  is  auto- 
matic. An  automaton  is  a  thing  which  goes  by  itself  when  it  is 
wound  up,  and  we  go  by  ourselves  when  we  have  had  food.  Ex- 
cepting the  fact  that  other  men  are  conscious,  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  regard  the  human  body  as  merely  an  exceed- 
ingly complicated  machine  which  is  wound  up  by  putting  food 
into  the  mouth.  But  it  is  not  merely  a  machine,  because  conscious- 
ness goes  with  it.  The  mind,  then,  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  stream 
of  feelings  which  runs  parallel  to,  and  simultaneous  with,  a  certain 
part  of  the  action  of  the  body,  that  is  to  say,  that  particular  part 
of  the  action  of  the  brain  in  which  the  cerebrum  and  the  sensory 
tract  are  excited." 

I  have  quoted  Clifford  at  such  length  because  it  is  really 
important  that  we  should  gain  a  distinct  idea  of  the  sort  of  reason- 
ing that  leads  men  to  become  adherents  of  the  doctrine  of  parallel- 
ism, and  from  no  writer  can  we  gain  it  more  clearly  than  from 
Clifford.  Those  familiar  with  the  progress  of  modern  psychological 
theory  will  see  that,  had  he  lived  to  the  present  day,  he  would 
probably  have  been  inclined  to  modify  his  statements  in  a  few 
particulars.  He  might,  for  example,  have  avoided  the  use  of 
such  a  phrase  as  "  the  consciousness  of  the  motor  impulse."  Such 
details  are,  however,  of  trifling  importance  here,  and  need  not 
occupy  our  attention. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  us  is  the  close  similarity  of  much 
of  his  reasoning  to  the  argument  of  Descartes.  Indeed,  if  we 
leave  out  of  view  the  Cartesian  soul  with  its  definite  place  in  the 
brain,  we  may  almost  say  that  Clifford's  argument  is  a  mere  ex- 
pansion of  that  of  Descartes,  and  an  expansion  which  has  been 
made  possible  by  the  fact  that  we  have  gradually  acquired  a  some- 
what more  detailed  account  of  the  functioning  of  the  brain  than 
was  possessed  by  man  in  the  seventeenth  century.  That  the 
nervous  discharge  takes  a  short  cut  through  the  brain  in  the  case 
of  reflex  movements  and  follows  a  circuitous  path  when  movements 
are  voluntary  was  then  unknown. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  the  reader  of  Clifford's  force- 
ful paragraphs  is  in  danger  of  supposing  that  we  know  more  of  the 
intimate  structure  and  of  the  functioning  of  the  brain  than  we 
actually  do  know.  His  cheerful  optimism  carries  one  along  in 
an  uncritical  mood,  and  one  has  to  remind  oneself  that  such  a 


The  Automaton  Theory :   Parallelism  307 

statement  as,  "  two  actions  of  the  brain  which  occur  together 
form  a  link  between  themselves,  so  that  the  one  being  called 
up  the  other  is  called  up,"  does  not  rest  upon  an  independent 
basis  of  direct  observation,  but  is  an  inference  from  the  fact 
of  the  association  of  ideas,  at  least  in  most  instances.  Much 
of  Descartes'  cerebral  physiology  was  hypothetical,  and  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  the  same  of  the  cerebral  physiology  of  our 
own  day.1  In  this  reflection  those  who  do  not  wish  to  accept 
the  doctrine  of  the  physical  automaton  may  take  such  comfort 
as  they  can. 

Again,  the  clear  distinction  which  Clifford  draws  between 
mind  and  brain,  his  recognition  of  the  fact  that  they  must  not 
be  made  members  of  the  same  series,  is  due  to  his  appreciation 
of  the  fact  that  treating  the  soul  as  Descartes  does  simply  turns 
it  into  a  material  thing.  He  follows  Spinoza  in  insisting  that 
mind  and  brain  are  things  different  in  kind,  and  that  they  must 
not  be  unequally  yoked  together.2 

But  to  gain  a  somewhat  closer  view  of  this  parallelism  between 
mental  facts  and  physical,  and  to  see  the  bridge  that  Clifford  pro- 
poses to  throw  over  the  gulf  which  separates  them,  we  must  follow 
one  more  extract  from  the  lecture  we  have  been  considering.  It 
reads  thus  : 3  — 

"  Again,  let  us  consider  what  takes  place  when  we  perceive 
anything  by  means  of  our  eye.  A  certain  picture  is  produced 
upon  the  retina  of  the  eye,  which  is  like  the  picture  on  the  ground- 
glass  plate  in  a  photographic  camera ;  but  it  is  not  there  that 
the  consciousness  begins,  as  I  have  shown  before.  When  I  see 
anything  there  is  a  picture  produced  on  the  retina,  but  I  am  not 
conscious  of  it  there  ;  and  in  order  that  I  may  be  conscious  the 
message  must  be  taken  from  each  point  of  this  picture  along  the 
special  nerve-fibres  to  the  ganglion.  These  innumerable  fine  nerves 
which  come  away  from  the  retina  go  each  of  them  to  a  particular 
point  of  the  ganglion  and  the  result  is  that,  corresponding  to  that 
picture  at  the  back  of  the  retina,  there  is  a  disturbance  of  a  great 

1  See  my  paper  on  "Psychology  and  Physiology,"  in  the  Psychological  Review 
for  January,  1896. 

2  Besides  the  internal  evidence  of  the  influence  of  Spinoza's  thought  furnished 
by  Clifford's  papers,   "Body  and  Mind"  and  "On  the  Nature  of  Things-in-them- 
selves,"  we  have  the  direct  testimony  of  his  friend  and  biographer,  Sir  Frederick 
Pollock.     See  the  introduction  to  the  "  Lectures  and  Essays." 

8  Op.  cit.,  pp.  61  ff. 


308  Mind  and  Matter 

number  of  centres  of  gray  matter  in  the  ganglion.  If  certain  parts 
of  the  retina  of  my  eye,  having  light  thrown  upon  them,  are  dis- 
turbed so  as  to  produce  the  figure  of  a  square,  then  certain  little 
pieces  of  gray  matter  in  this  ganglion,  which  are  distributed  we 
do  not  know  how,  will  also  be  disturbed,  and  the  impression  cor- 
responding to  that  is  a  square.  Consciousness  belongs  to  this 
disturbance  of  the  ganglion,  and  not  to  the  picture  in  the  eye ; 
and  therefore  it  is  something  quite  different  from  the  thing  which 
is  perceived.  But  at  the  same  time,  if  we  consider  another  man 
looking  at  something,  we  shall  say  that  the  fact  is  this  —  there 
is  something  outside  of  him  which  is  matter  in  motion,  and  that 
which  corresponds  inside  of  him  is  also  matter  in  motion.  The 
external  motion  of  matter  produces  in  the  optic  ganglion  some- 
thing which  corresponds  to  it,  but  is  not  like  it.  Although  for 
every  point  in  the  object  there  is  a  point  of  disturbance  in  the 
optic  ganglion,  and  for  every  connection  between  two  points  in 
the  object  there  is  a  connection  between  two  disturbances,  yet 
they  are  not  like  one  another.  Nevertheless  they  are  made  of  the 
same  stuff;  the  object  outside  and  the  optic  ganglion  are  both 
matter,  and  that  matter  is  made  of  molecules  moving  about  in 
ether.  When  I  consider  the  impression  which  is  produced  upon 
my  mind  of  any  fact,  that  is  just  a  part  of  my  mind ;  the  impres- 
sion is  a  part  of  me.  The  hall  which  I  see  now  is  just  an  impres- 
sion produced  on  my  mind  by  something  outside  of  it,  and  that 
impression  is  a  part  of  me. 

"  We  may  conclude  from  this  theory  of  sensation,  which  is 
established  by  the  discoveries  of  Helmholtz,  that  the  feeling  which 
I  have  in  my  mind  —  the  picture  of  this  hall— is  something  cor- 
responding, point  for  point,  to  the  actual  reality  outside.  Though 
every  small  part  of  the  reality  which  is  outside  corresponds  to  a 
small  part  of  my  picture,  though  every  connection  between  two 
parts  of  that  reality  outside  corresponds  to  a  connection  between 
two  parts  of  my  picture,  yet  the  two  things  are  not  alike.  They 
correspond  to  one  another,  just  as  a  map  may  be  said  in  a  certain 
sense  to  correspond  with  the  country  of  which  it  is  a  map,  or  as  a 
written  sentence  may  be  said  to  correspond  to  a  spoken  sentence. 
But  then  I  may  conclude  from  what  I  said  before  that,  although 
the  two  corresponding  things  are  not  alike,  yet  they  are  made  of 
the  same  stuff.  Now  what  is  my  picture  made  of?  My  picture 
is  made  of  exceedingly  simple  mental  facts,  so  simple  that  I  only 


The  Automaton  Theory :   Parallelism  309 

feel  them  in  groups.1  My  picture  is  made  up  of  these  elements ; 
and  I  am  therefore  to  conclude  that  the  real  thing  which  is  outside 
me,  and  which  corresponds  to  my  picture,  is  made  up  of  similar 
things ;  that  is  to  say,  the  reality  which  underlies  matter,  the 
reality  which  we  perceive  as  matter,  is  that  same  stuff  which, 
being  compounded  together  in  a  particular  way,  produces  mind. 
What  I  perceive  as  your  brain  is  really  in  itself  your  consciousness, 
is  You ;  but  then  that  which  I  call  your  brain,  the  material  fact,  is 
merely  my  perception.  Suppose  we  put  a  certain  man  in  the 
middle  of  the  hall,  and  we  all  looked  at  him.  We  should  all  have 
perceptions  of  his  brain ;  those  would  be  facts  in  our  conscious- 
ness, but  they  would  be  all  different  facts.  My  perception  would 
be  different  from  the  picture  produced  upon  you,  and  it  would  be 
another  picture,  although  it  might  be  very  like  it.  So  that  cor- 
responding to  all  those  pictures  which  are  produced  in  our  minds 
from  an  external  object,  there  is  a  reality  which  is  not  like  the 
pictures,  but  which  corresponds  to  them  point  for  point,  and  which 
is  made  of  the  same  stuff  that  the  pictures  are.  The  actual  reality 
which  underlies  what  we  call  matter  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the 
mind,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  our  perception,  but  it  is  made  of 
the  same  stuff.  To  use  the  words  of  the  old  disputants,  we  may 
say  that  matter  is  not  of  the  same  substance  as  mind,  not  homo- 
ousion,  but  is  of  like  substance,  it  is  made  of  similar  stuff  differ- 
ently compacted  together,  homoiousion." 

With  the  exception  of  this  last  bridge  connecting  mental  facts 
with  physical,  Clifford  regards  the  whole  of  what  he  has  said  as  a 
body  of  doctrine  accepted  by  all  competent  persons  who  have  con- 
sidered the  subject.  There  may  be,  he  thinks,  some  differences  of 
opinion  as  to  particular  points,  but  the  doctrine  is  the  doctrine  of 
Science ;  it  is  the  doctrine  of  the  parallelism  of  mental  states  to 
cerebral  motions.  This  bridge,  which  cannot  yet  be  considered  to 
be  a  part  of  the  accepted  doctrine  of  science,  but  which  Clifford 
regards  as  satisfactorily  reaching  from  shore  to  shore,  is  the  identity 
of  mind  and  brain.  Science  must  accept  the  fact  that  mind  and 
brain  are  associated  —  that  there  is  a  parallelism  ;  and  since  all 
the  consciousness  we  know  of  is  associated  with  certain  complex 

1  I  have  in  the  foregoing  omitted  Clifford's  argument  to  prove  that  consciousness 
is  made  up  of  these  simple  mental  facts.  It  will  be  more  convenient  to  discuss  it 
later,  and  its  omission  here  need  not  affect  our  conception  of  the  sort  of  "  bridge" 
he  is  essaying  to  build. 


310  Mind  and  Matter 

forms  of  matter,  it  seems  reasonable  to  assume  that  there  is  no 
consciousness  not  associated  with  matter.  We  have  here,  how- 
ever, only  a  provisional  probability.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
fact  that  mind  and  brain  are  associated  in  a  certain  definite  way 
affords  a  strong  presumption  that  we  have  here  something  that  can 
be  explained,  a  presumption  that  it  is  possible  to  find  a  reason  for 
this  exact  correspondence.  If  such  a  reason  can  be  found,  we  are 
no  longer  compelled  to  rest  content  with  a  provisional  probability, 
but  we  have  the  highest  assurance  that  Science  can  give  us,  an 
assurance  amounting  to  practical  certainty,  that  there  is  no  mind 
without  a  brain. 

Now,  writes  Clifford,  if  that  particular  explanation  which  he 
has  ventured  to  offer  should  turn  out  to  be  the  true  one,  the  case 
becomes  even  stronger.  If  mind  is  the  reality  which  appears  to 
us  as  brain-action,  then  the  supposition  of  mind  without  brain  is  a 
contradiction.1  In  the  above-quoted  extract  the  reader  has  met 
with  the  sentence,  "  What  I  perceive  as  your  brain  is  really  in 
itself  your  consciousness,  is  You."  If  we  are  to  take  such  a  state- 
ment at  all  literally,  it  is  manifestly  a  contradiction  to  speak  of 
mind  without  brain,  for  mind  is  brain.  The  two  cannot  be 
divorced  because  they  are  the  same  thing,  and  in  the  strictest  sense 
of  that  ambiguous  word  same.  But  if  we  thus  read  Clifford,  we 
cannot  but  see  that  his  bridge  is  not  so  much  a  bridge  as  rather  a 
denial  of  the  existence  of  the  gulf  which  it  was  proposed  to  bridge 
over.  He  seems  to  be  arguing  that  two  shores  run  parallel  to  each 
other,  and  must  run  parallel  to  each  other  because  they  are  not 
really  two  shores,  but  are  one  and  the  same  shore,  and  there  is  no 
gulf. 

It  is  surely  unfair  to  take  Clifford's  statements  of  the  identity 
of  mind  and  brain  quite  so  literally.  If  mind  and  brain  are  strictly 
the  same  thing,  it  seems  foolish  to  go  on  talking  as  though  we  had 
here  two  things.  Parallelism  itself  disappears,  for  it  is  absurd  to 
say  that  a  thing  is  parallel  with  itself.  And  the  reader  who  has 
followed  carefully  the  statements  contained  in  the  last  long  extract 
which  I  have  given  cannot  have  failed  to  see  that  it  was  not  in- 
tended to  make  mind  and  brain  strictly  identical  with  each  other, 
but  merely  to  make  them  identical  in  some  looser  sense  of  the  word. 
Of  course,  the  looser  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is  taken,  the 
less  clear  is  it  that  it  is  a  contradiction  to  speak  of  mind  without 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  66. 


The  Automaton  Theory :   Parallelism  311 

brain,  and  the  less  sure  are  we  of  the  solidity  of  the  "  bridge  " 
which  Clifford  has  built  for  us.  That  his  own  ideas  about  this 
"  bridge  "  were  decidedly  nebulous  seems  clear  even  from  what  is 
said  in  the  above-mentioned  extract.  It  appears  worth  while  to 
point  this  out  briefly  now,  though  the  whole  matter  will  have  to  be 
discussed  later  more  thoroughly. 

In  the  extract  the  dramatis  personce  to  whom  we  seem  to  be 
introduced  at  the  outset  are :  an  external  object,  which  we  will 
call  a  square  ;  a  retinal  image  of  that  object,  which  is  also  square  ; 
a  disturbance  of  the  ganglion,  which  we  have  no  reason  to  believe 
square ;  and  a  mental  image,  which  is  a  square.  Consciousness, 
i.e.  the  mental  image,  belongs  to  the  disturbance  of  the  ganglion, 
and,  as  this  is  something  quite  different  from  the  external  object, 
consciousness  also  is  something  quite  different  from  the  external 
object. 

In  this  scheme,  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  about  the  fact  that 
the  mental  image  is  one  thing  and  the  external  object  another. 
There  are  even  two  things  mentioned  as  between  them  in  some 
sense  of  the  word — the  retinal  image  and  the  disturbance  of  the 
ganglion.  No  reason  is  apparent  why  this  scheme  should  not  serve, 
no  matter  what  the  particular  character  of  the  external  object  may 
be.  That  is  to  say,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  an  ex- 
ternal brain  will  be  related  to  the  retinal  image  of  the  brain,  to  the 
corresponding  disturbance  of  the  ganglion,  and  to  the  mental  image 
of  the  brain,  just  as  an  external  square  is  to  its  retinal  image, 
ganglionic  disturbance,  and  mental  image. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  extract,  however,  we  learn  with  sur- 
prise that  if  we  place  a  man's  brain  in  the  midst  of  a  hall  and  look 
at  it,  our  perceptions  will  not  be  identical  with  each  other,  but 
they  will  all  be  identical  with  the  brain  in  question  ("  that  which  I 
call  your  brain,  the  material  fact,  is  merely  my  perception  "). 
The  brain  seen  is  thus  not  an  external  thing  at  all,  and  cannot  be 
placed  in  the  above  scheme  at  two  removes  from  the  perception  or 
mental  image.  It  is  the  mental  image  itself ;  and  now  the  external 
thing  is  not  a  brain,  but  something  very  different — it  is  some 
one  else's  consciousness  ("  what  I  perceive  as  your  brain  is  really 
in  itself  your  consciousness,  is  You"  ). 

The  correspondence  or  parallelism,  then,  seems  to  be  not  be- 
tween mind  and  brain,  but  between  the  mind  of  one  man  and  the 
mind  of  another.  But  if  this  be  so,  why  are  we  told  that  the  actual 


312  Mind  and  Matter 

reality  which  underlies  what  we  call  matter  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  the  mind,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  our  perception,  but  is  made 
of  the  same  stuff  ?  Does  this  mean  simply  that  when  we  have  a 
perception  which  we  call  the  brain  of  another  man,  we  may  assume 
that  there  corresponds  to  this,  unperceived  by  us,  certain  other 
perceptions  of  various  sorts  that  we  may  call  the  mind  of  the  other 
man  ?  But,  even  if  we  assume  this  to  be  true,  does  it  not  seem 
rather  odd  to  say  that  certain  perceptions  in  one  mind  are  identi- 
cal with  certain  more  or  less  different  perceptions  in  another  —  to 
say  that  "  what  I  perceive  as  your  brain  is  really  in  itself  your  con- 
sciousness "  ?  It  is  this  identity  or  quasi-identity  of  the  two  that 
furnishes  Clifford  with  his  "  bridge."  Can  nothing  better  be  said 
for  this  "  bridge  "  than  what  is  said  in  the  preceding  sentences  ? 

As  matters  stand,  there  may  be  parallelism,  but  there  seems  to 
be  no  identity  whatever  except  perhaps  an  identity  of  kind,  and 
the  "  bridge "  simply  disappears.  Yet  there  are  few  who  read 
Clifford's  pages  without  being  impressed  by  the  fact  that  there  is 
at  least  some  plausibility  in  his  theory.  The  source  of  this  plausi- 
bility I  shall  investigate  in  the  next  chapter,  where  I  shall  subject 
the  conception  of  parallelism  to  a  preliminary  criticism,  leaving 
out  of  view  some  of  the  difficulties  which  have  come  to  the 
surface  just  above,  and  which  it  is  convenient  to  reserve  for  later 
discussion. 


CHAPTER  XX 
WHAT  IS  PARALLELISM? 

IN  this  chapter  I  shall  assume  that  there  is  a  world  of 
material  things,  including  human  bodies,  without  inquiring  very 
narrowly  how  we  are  to  conceive  this  world,  and  in  what  sense  it 
is  external. 

Descartes'  study  of  the  human  body  led  him  to  believe,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  the  nervous  system  is  more  directly  the  organ  of 
mind  than  is  anything  else  in  the  body,  and  that  the  brain  is,  so  to 
speak,  the  very  citadel  of  the  place.  The  modern  science  of  cere- 
bral psychology  has  continued  the  investigation  which  he  began, 
and  has  continued  it  along  the  same  lines.  Although  we  may  be- 
gin by  speaking  somewhat  vaguely  of  mind  and  body,  we  always 
end,  when  we  wish  to  be  exact,  by  speaking  of  mind  and  brain,  or 
rather  of  this  or  that  mental  phenomenon  and  this  or  that  part  of 
the  brain.  Infinite  labor  has  been  expended  in  the  effort  to  deter- 
mine with  accuracy  and  in  all  possible  detail  the  correspondences 
between  mental  activity  and  cerebral  activity,  and  this  labor  has 
not  been  wholly  without  result.  The  localization  of  cerebral  func- 
tions is  not  an  empty  phrase  to  any  one  who  has  examined  the 
results  which  have  so  far  been  obtained. 

The  supposition  that  these  results  as  a  whole  may,  in  the  fur- 
ther progress  of  science,  have  to  be  abandoned,  may  be  dismissed 
as  unworthy  of  serious  attention.  They  may  undoubtedly  be 
modified  in  detail,  but  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  the 
method  of  research  which  has  led  to  their  formulation  is  a  sound 
one,  and  that  it  will  one  day  give  us  results  far  more  complete 
and  satisfactory.  It  is  no  more  absurd  to  regard  some  particular 
manifestation  of  consciousness  as  related  to  the  activity  of  some 
particular  part  of  the  brain,  than  it  is  to  think  of  consciousness  as 
related  to  the  brain  as  a  whole,  instead  of  thinking  of  it  as  vaguely 
related  to  the  whole  body.  And  the  same  sort  of  evidence  that 
inclines  us  to  regard  the  brain  as  the  special  organ  of  conscious- 

313 


314  Mind  and  Matter 

ness  may  incline  us  to  particularize  still  more.  How  far  we  are 
justified  in  going  is  solely  a  question  of  evidence,  and  it  is  a 
rash  man  who  will  undertake  to  set  an  arbitrary  limit  to  such 
investigations. 

That  the  progress  of  science  has  ousted  the  Cartesian  soul  from 
its  place  in  the  pineal  gland  will  be  a  matter  of  small  regret  to 
those  who  have  given  the  subject  adequate  attention.  That  soul 
was  not  a  soul  at  all ;  that  is  to  say,  it  was  not  a  consciousness, 
but  was  a  material  thing  that  could  be  located  in  this  part  of  the 
brain  or  in  that,  like  the  veriest  lump  of  matter.  And  any  soul 
that  the  interactionist  is  inclined  to  put  in  its  place  must,  since  it 
is  to  take  its  place  and  become  a  cog  in  a  material  mechanism,  be 
itself  a  material  thing,  and  not  a  something  of  a  different  order. 

He  who  truly  realizes  this  loses  his  inclination  to  be  an  inter- 
actionist, and  he  casts  about  for  some  other  way  of  conceiving  the 
relation  of  mind  and  brain.  He  is  pretty  sure  to  become  an  ad- 
herent of  the  doctrine  of  parallelism,  and  to  say  with  Professor 
Clifford  and  many  others  that  physical  phenomena  and  mental 
phenomena  must  not  be  conceived  as  patched  together  into  one 
system,  but  must  be  conceived  as  belonging  to  different  orders, 
must  be  relegated  to  separate  series  which  never  intersect  one 
another.  It  is  a  fair  question  to  ask  :  Just  how  much  does  a  man 
mean  by  the  word,  when  he  speaks  of  physical  phenomena  and 
mental  as  being  parallel  ?  The  word  may,  like  most  words,  be 
abused,  and  its  use  may  be  an  occasion  of  falling  into  more  or  less 
serious  error. 

One  cannot  follow  the  arguments  which  have  led  to  the  adop- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  parallelism  without  assuming,  at  least  pro- 
visionally, the  existence  of  an  external  world  of  things  and  of 
minds  perceived  to  be  distinct  from  them.  A  material  object 
exists ;  I  perceive  it ;  the  object  makes  an  impression  upon  the 
retina  of  the  eye  ;  as  a  result  of  this  a  certain  disturbance  is  set 
up  somewhere  in  the  brain ;  I  have  a  mental  image  of  the  object. 
The  object  is  one  thing,  the  impression  upon  the  retina  another, 
the  cerebral  change  still  another,  and  the  mental  image  something 
distinct  from  all  of  these.  Investigation  seems  to  show  that  the 
mental  image  is  more  intimately  related  to  the  cerebral  disturbance 
than  to  any  other  motion  of  matter,  and  we  say  that  the  mental 
image  and  the  cerebral  disturbance  are  parallel.  How  much  have 
we  a  right  to  mean  by  this  ? 


What  is  Parallelism?  315 

For  one  thing,  we  evidently  mean  that  these  two  things  are  so 
related  that  the  existence  of  the  one  may  be  taken  as  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  the  other.  Given  the  cerebral  disturbance,  the 
mental  image  is  given  ;  and  given  the  mental  image,  the  cerebral 
disturbance  is  given.  The  one  may  be  taken  as  a  sign  or  as  a 
guarantee  of  the  other. 

We  evidently  mean,  moreover,  that  the  mental  image  does  not 
belong  to  the  same  series  with  the  cerebral  disturbance,  and  hence 
cannot  interact  with  it.  Neither  can  cause  the  other  ;  neither  can  be 
the  effect  of  the  other.  Any  attempt  to  put  them  in  such  a  rela- 
tion partakes,  as  Clifford  expresses  it,  of  "  the  crude  materialism 
of  the  savage  "  ;  and  although  this  relationship  may  be  cloaked  by 
ambiguity  of  expression  or  by  inconsistency  of  statement,  it  be- 
comes unmistakable  when  we  try  to  conceive  quite  clearly  just 
what  interaction  implies. 

When  this  second  point  is  borne  well  in  mind,  we  realize  that 
there  are  certain  ways  in  which  we  must  not  think  of  the  parallel- 
ism of  the  mental  and  the  physical. 

We  must  not  conceive  of  a  man's  mind  as  lying  beside  his  brain 
in  space,  as  we  do  conceive  of  parallel  lines  as  lying  beside  each 
other.  We  must  not  think  of  it  as  fitted  to  his  brain  as  a  gilt  halo 
is  fitted  to  the  head  of  a  saint  in  a  picture  by  Fra  Angelico.  The 
warning  is  by  no  means  superfluous,  for  the  error  appears  to  be  a 
very  easy  one  to  fall  into.  We  are  all  apt  to  talk  as  though  the 
relation  of  mind  and  brain  were  more  or  less  analogous  to  this; 
and  when,  before  our  classes,  we  attempt  to  make  clear  certain 
psychological  facts  by  the  aid  of  diagrams  upon  a  blackboard,  we 
place  brains  and  ideas  side  by  side,  as  though  they  really  occurred 
side  by  side  in  nature.  The  endeavor  to  point  out  to  the  student 
that  this  diagrammatic  representation  is  faulty  is  met  by  the  trium- 
phant query :  "  When  a  man  goes  to  Europe,  may  we  not  assume 
that  he  takes  his  mind  with  him  ?  " 

And  the  man  of  science  may  deprecate  dogmatism  on  the  sub- 
ject of  mind  and  matter,  and  may  declare  himself  to  be  without 
any  hypothesis  whatever,  and  yet  we  may  find  him,  when  he  per- 
mits himself  "  to  suggest  a  rough  and  crude  analogy,"  writing  as 
follows :  "  That  the  brain  is  the  organ  of  consciousness  is  patent, 
but  that  consciousness  is  located  in  the  brain  is  what  no  psycholo- 
gist ought  to  assert ;  for  just  as  the  energy  of  an  electric  dis- 
charge, though  apparently  on  the  conductor,  is  not  on  the  conductor 


316  Mind  and  Matter 

but  in  all  the  space  round  it ;  just  as  the  energy  of  an  electric  cur- 
rent, though  apparently  in  the  copper  wire,  is  certainly  not  all  in 
the  copper  wire,  and  possibly  not  any  of  it;  so  it  may  be  that  the 
sensory  consciousness  of  a  person,  though  apparently  located  in  his 
brain,  may  be  conceived  of  as  also  existing  like  a  faint  echo  in 
space,  or  in  other  brains,  though  these  are  ordinarily  too  busy  and 
preoccupied  to  notice  it."1 

Thus  certain  cases  of  supposed  thought-transference  are  ren- 
dered comprehensible  by  the  suggestion  that  two  saints  may,  so  to 
speak,  touch  halos,  and  enter  into  a  mystical  spiritual  communion. 
There  is  nothing  in  this  conception  that  strikes  the  average  man 
as  inherently  absurd,  at  least  until  he  has  thought  the  matter  over 
with  a  good  deal  of  patience,  because  his  first  impulse  is  always  to 
put  minds  in  space,  where  brains  are.  But  when  he  realizes  that 
the  parallelism  in  question  cannot  be  a  spatial  one,  he  begins  to 
see  that  the  relation  of  mind  and  brain  is  something  that  cannot 
be  so  easily  grasped. 

And  if  this  relation  is  not  a  spatial  one,  we  cannot  assume  that 
the  mind  is  present  to  the  brain  in  any  ordinary  sense  of  that  word. 
If  mind  and  brain  really  do  belong  to  two  different  orders  of  exist- 
ence which  do  not  intersect,  we  cannot  say  that,  when  a  given 
cerebral  disturbance  is  present,  a  certain  mental  state  is  present, 
without  admitting  that  we  are  using  the  word  in  a  sense  quite  dis- 
tinct from  the  usual  one.  We  must  remember  that  the  mind  is 
neither  in  the  brain  nor  near  the  brain. 

It  is  worth  while  to  repeat  over  and  over  again,  since  it  is  so 
easy  to  become  oblivious  of  the  fact,  the  statement  that  my  mind, 
which  is  supposed  to  be  parallel  to  my  brain  and  to  no  other,  is  not 
a  whit  nearer  to  my  brain  than  it  is  to  the  brain  of  the  Emperor 
of  China  or  to  that  of  the  Pope  of  Rome.  Of  course,  it  is  not 
further  from  my  brain  than  from  either  of  these,  but  it  certainly  is 
not  nearer.  Near  and  far  have  no  meaning  when  we  are  not  speak- 
ing of  spatial  relations ;  and  when  one  thing  is  supposed  to  have  a 
place  in  space  and  another  is  not,  it  is  absurd  to  try  to  measure 
the  distance  between  them.  When,  therefore,  we  speak  of  a  mind 
and  of  a  brain  as  being  parallel,  we  must  be  most  careful  not  to 
conceive  of  the  mind  and  of  the  brain  as  present  to  each  other  in 
any  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  or  as  near  to  each  other.  This  is 

1  Professor  Oliver  J.  Lodge,  "Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search,1' Part  V,  p.  191. 


What  is  Parallelism?  317 

an  important  matter,  for  all  sorts  of  strange  results  may  follow 
from  our  allowing  ourselves  to  fall  into  such  confusions. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  use  lan- 
guage that  will  not  suggest  such  confusions.  No  man  tries  more 
earnestly  than  Clifford  to  relegate  mind  and  matter  to  different 
and  distinct  worlds.  Yet  when  he  speaks  of  a  message  carried 
from  the  eye  to  the  brain,  he  tells  us,  "  the  mental  fact  does  not 
begin  anywhere  before  the  optic  ganglion." J  A  little  farther  on 
he  says :  "  The  mental  fact  is  somewhere  or  other  in  the  region 
ROCB  of  the  diagram,"  which  means  that  it  is  somewhere  in  the 
region  of  the  optic  thalami,  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  and  the  corpora 
striata.  The  body,  he  tells  us,  is  not  merely  a  machine,  because 
consciousness  "  goes  with  it,"  and  he  reiterates  that  "  mental  facts 
go  along  with  the  bodily  facts."2  He  informs  us  that  the  action 
which  goes  on  in  a  brain  may  be  looked  at  "from  the  mental 
side."3 

Such  statements  may  be  so  interpreted  as  not  to  be  misleading, 
but  there  can  be  no  question  of  what  they  suggest  to  the  uncritical 
reader.  There  can,  I  think,  be  as  little  question  of  what  they  sug- 
gested to  Clifford  himself,  and  this  I  shall  endeavor  to  bring  out 
shortly.  Meanwhile,  I  wish  to  insist  upon  the  fact  that  those  who 
talk  of  the  parallelism  of  mind  and  brain  constantly  speak  as  though 
a  particular  mind  and  a  particular  brain  were  parallel  in  some  physi- 
cal sense,  were  near  each  other  and  could  go  together  somewhat  as  do 
a  man  and  his  shadow  —  which  illustration  suggests  to  my  mind  a 
good  instance  of  the  fact  that  this  really  is  the  effect  upon  men's  minds 
of  reading  the  words  of  the  parallelists.  Professor  James,  after 
an  examination  of  Clifford's  doctrine,  thus  characterizes  it :  "  The 
mind-history  would  run  alongside  of  the  body-history  of  each  man, 
and  each  point  in  the  one  would  correspond  to,  but  not  react  upon, 
a  point  in  the  other.  So  the  melody  floats  from  the  harp-string, 
but  neither  checks  nor  quickens  its  vibrations ;  so  the  shadow  runs 
alongside  the  pedestrian,  but  in  no  sense  influences  his  steps."4 

Such  misleading  expressions  are  often  used  even  by  those  who 
are  ready  to  warn  us  that  we  must  not  be  misled  by  them.  Thus 
in  an  early  work  by  Professor  Bain  we  find  the  following:  "All 
feelings  have  a  Physical  Side,  or  relation  to  our  bodily  organs  ;  the 
sensations,  for  example,  arise  on  the  stimulation  of  a  special  organ 

1  "Lectures  and  Essays,"  London,  1879.     "Body  and  Mind,"  p.  57. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  58.  8  Ibid.,  p.  59.  *  "  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  133. 


318  Mind  and  Matter 

of  sense ;  and  both  sensations  and  emotions  have  a  characteristic 
outward  display  or  expression,  which  indicates  their  existence  to  a 
spectator.  I  include  in  the  description  of  each  feeling  whatever 
is  known  of  its  physical  accompaniments.  The  feeling  proper, 
or  the  Mental  Side,  has  its  relationships  exhausted  under  the 
three  fundamental  attributes  of  Mind — Feeling,  Volition,  and 
Intellect."  J 

Manifestly,  Professor  Bain  does  not  intend  us  to  take  such 
expressions  as  "  mental  side  "  and  "  physical  side  "  at  all  literally, 
for  he  has  already  said  only  a  few  pages  back :  "  It  has  always 
been  a  matter  of  difficulty  to  express  the  nature  of  this  concomi- 
tance, and  hence  a  certain  mystery  has  attached  to  the  union  of 
mind  and  body.  The  difficulty  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  we  are 
apt  to  insist  on  some  kind  of  local  or  space  relationship  between 
the  Extended  arid  the  Unextended.  When  we  think  of  connec- 
tion it  is  almost  always  of  connection  in  space  ;  as  in  supposing  one 
thing  placed  in  the  interior  of  another.  This  last  figure  is  often 
applied  to  the  present  case.  Mind  is  said  to  be  internal  to,  or 
within,  the  body.  Descartes  localized  mind  in  the  pineal  gland ; 
the  Schoolmen  debated  whether  the  mind  is  all  in  the  whole  body, 
or  all  in  every  part.  Such  expressions  are  unsuitable  to  the  case. 
The  connection  is  one  of  dependence,  but  not  properly  of  local 
union."2 

These  sentences  are  sufficiently  clear  and  unmistakable.  They 
constitute  a  vigorous  warning  against  the  error  of  conceiving  that 
a  given  mind  "  goes  along  with  "  a  given  body  as  his  shadow  goes 
along  with  a  pedestrian.  But  the  man  who  reads  them  forgets 
them  when  he  comes  to  the  account  of  the  physical  side  and  of  the 
mental  side  of  feelings.  He  then  thinks  of  the  concomitance  of 
mind  and  body  after  a  material  analogy,  and  he  draws  from  this, 
according  to  his  humor,  either  an  argument  against  parallelism  or 
an  explanation  which  seems  to  make  parallelism  the  most  natu- 
ral thing  in  the  world.  This  is  a  point  of  such  importance  that  I 
must  illustrate  it  at  length. 

First,  as  to  the  argument  against  parallelism.  Professor  James 
finds  concomitance  in  the  midst  of  absolute  separateness  an  utterly 
irrational  notion:  "It  is  to  my  mind  quite  inconceivable  that  con- 
sciousness should  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  business  that  it  so 
faithfully  attends.  And  the  question,  'What  has  it  to  do?'  is 

l  "Mental  and  Moral  Science,"  London,  1868,  p.  18.  2  Ibid.,  p.  4. 


What  is  Parallelism?  319 

one  which  psychology  has  no  right  to  'surmount,'  for  it  is  her 
plain  duty  to  consider  it.  ...  If  feelings  are  causes,  of  course 
their  effects  must  be  furtherances  and  checkings  of  internal  cere- 
bral motions  of  which,  in  themselves,  we  are  entirely  without 
knowledge.  It  is  probable  that  for  years  to  come  we  shall  have  to 
infer  what  happens  in  the  brain  either  from  our  feelings  or  from 
motor  effects  which  we  observe.  The  organ  will  be  for  us  a  sort 
of  vat  in  which  feelings  and  motions  somehow  go  on  stewing 
together,  and  in  which  innumerable  things  happen  of  which  we 
catch  but  the  statistical  result."  l 

It  is  evident  that  one  who  can  conceive  of  motions  and  feelings 
as  stewing  together  in  the  same  vat  has  not  distinguished  them  as 
belonging  to  different  orders.  They  are  both  in  the  one  vat,  i.e. 
they  are  both  material,  and  the  problem  of  their  relation  to  each 
other  cannot  be  a  serious  one.  As  an  interactionist,  Professor 
James  has,  of  course,  the  right  to  make  mind  material  if  he  wishes 
to  do  so.  But  the  part  of  the  above  extract  in  which  we  are  espe- 
cially interested  is  that  which  preceded  his  casting  feelings  into  the 
vat.  He  speaks  of  consciousness  attending  cerebral  changes,  and 
he  finds  it  inconceivable  that  it  should  so  faithfully  do  this  unless 
there  be  some  causal  connection  between  them.  It  is  interesting 
to  inquire  :  Why  does  this  seem  to  him  an  inconceivability?  Why 
does  something  else  seem  to  him  more  natural? 

To  this  question  I  think  that  but  one  answer  can  be  given. 
Professor  James  is  aware  that  the  parallelist  would  be  shocked  to 
think  of  feelings  and  motions  as  "stewing  together,"  and  that  he 
tries  to  conceive  of  them  as  belonging  to  distinct  and  independent 
orders.  Yet  he  hears  him  speak  of  a  concomitance,  of  a  parallelism, 
of  feelings  and  motions  as  "  going  along  together."  He  thinks  of 
the  consciousness  that  attends  cerebral  changes  as  attending  them 
as  a  man's  shadow  attends  him.  The  shadow  moves  when  the 
man  moves,  stops  when  he  stops,  and  reproduces  with  slavish 
exactitude  all  the  eccentricities  of  his  behavior.  Is  it  conceivable 
that  such  a  parallelism  should  exist  in  the  absence  of  all  causal 
connection  ?  What  becomes  of  the  method  of  concomitant  varia- 
tions if  men  and  their  shadows  may  be  regarded  as  so  faithfully 
attending  each  other  when  united  by  no  bond  of  causality?  Must 
we  repudiate  the  illustration  of  the  moon  and  the  tides,  and  all  the 
other  classical  examples  upon  which  our  minds  have  been  nourished 
1  "Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  130-138. 


320  Mind  and  Matter 

ever  since  the  publication  of  Mill's  "  Logic  "  ?  If  we  accept  concomi- 
tance as  evidence  of  some  sort  of  causal  connection  everywhere 
else,  why  not  accept  it  when  we  come  to  consider  the  concomitance 
of  feelings  and  cerebral  changes  ? 

Were  the  two  kinds  of  concomitance  the  same,  there  could  be 
no  question  of  the  justice  of  the  argument.  But  the  tacit  assump- 
tion that  they  are  the  same  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  pass  without 
challenge.  If  the parallelist  is  right,  feelings  must  not  be  assigned 
any  local  habitation  whatever.  They  are  not  in  the  brain ;  they 
are  not  even  near  the  brain ;  they  do  not  move  about  when  the 
brain  moves,  nor  stop  moving  when  it  stops.  Feelings  parallel  to 
one  brain  are  quite  as  much  in  or  on  or  about  another  brain  as  they 
are  in  or  on  or  about  it. 

This  is  a  truth  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  psychologist  to  bear 
steadfastly  in  mind.  He  says  to  us:  "  Take  a  sentence  of  a  dozen 
words,  and  take  twelve  men  and  tell  to  each  one  word.  Then 
stand  the  men  in  a  row  or  jam  them  in  a  bunch,  and  let  each  think 
of  his  word  as  intently  as  he  will ;  nowhere  will  there  be  a  con- 
sciousness of  a  whole  sentence."1  But  if  minds  are  not  in  space 
and  must  not  be  conceived  as  localized  at  all,  why  bring  the  men 
together  ?  The  minds  are  not  farther  apart  if  the  men  be  con- 
ceived as  distributed  over  four  continents.  Nearness  of  body  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  nearness  of  mind.  It  is  only  when 
we  localize,  i.e.  materialize,  mind,  that  we  are  inclined  to  think 
that  when  two  men  stand  near  to  each  other  their  minds  must  be 
near  to  each  other  too. 

The  concomitance  of  mind  and  brain  is,  then,  conceived  by  the 
parallelist,  when  he  is  true  to  his  doctrine,  to  be  a  concomitance  of 
a  quite  peculiar  kind,  and  one  to  which  no  parallel  can  be  found 
anywhere  else.  It  is  absolutely  unique. 

When  we  connect  the  motion  of  the  moon  with  the  flow  of  the 
tides,  we  are  dealing  exclusively  with  a  mechanical  order  of  things, 
and  we  are  assigning  to  certain  motions  in  matter  their  place  of 
antecedent  and  consequent  in  that  mechanical  world-order.  All 
the  positions  and  motions  of  matter  with  which  we  are  concerned 
belong  to  the  one  order,  and  are  clearly  susceptible  of  connection 
into  one  series.  But  when  we  think  of  certain  mental  phenomena 
as  concomitant  with  the  changes  in  a  given  brain,  we  are  not  justi- 
fied in  assuming  that  this  implies  that  the  phenomena  of  the  two 
1  James,  "Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  100. 


What  is  Parallelism?  321 

orders  can  be  arranged  in  the  one  series.  He  who  assumes  this 
simply  overlooks  the  fact  that  he  has  distinguished  between  two 
orders  of  things,  and  he  reduces  them  to  one.  As  well  endeavor 
to  arrange  in  the  same  series  changes  in  the  position  of  a  moon 
and  changes  in  the  position  of  the  drops  of  water  which  compose 
a  tidal  wave,  when,  by  hypothesis,  the  space  in  which  the  one 
series  of  changes  takes  place  is  not  continuous  with  that  which  is 
the  scene  of  action  of  the  other. 

When  Professor  James  argues  that  concomitance  must  be  re- 
garded as  evidence  of  causal  relationship,  he  is  evidently  thinking 
of  physical  concomitance,  and  what  force  the  argument  seems  to 
have  is  borrowed  from  a  confusion  of  concomitance  of  this  kind  with 
concomitance  of  a  very  different  kind.  "When  one  clearly  realizes 
that  the  consciousness  which  "  attends  "  the  molecular  changes  in 
a  particular  brain  is  not  there  where  the  brain  is,  and  is  no  nearer 
to  this  particular  brain  than  it  is  to  any  other,  one  is  less  inclined 
to  stitch  this  consciousness  and  this  brain  into  the  one  motley  gar- 
ment. It  is  difficult  to  think  of  things  "  stewing  together,"  when 
we  realize  that  they  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  forced  into  the 
same  pot. 

But  this  tendency  to  conceive  of  the  relation  of  mind  and  brain 
after  a  material  analogy  is  like  the  conjurer's  hat  out  of  which  may 
be  drawn  objects  the  most  discrepant  and  incongruous.  We  have 
seen  it  yield  an  argument  against  parallelism  and  for  interaction- 
ism.  Those  who  have  followed  the  history  of  speculative  thought 
have  seen  emerge  from  it  again  and  again  a  most  plausible  argu- 
ment for  parallelism,  the  explanation,  in  fact,  which  to  many  minds 
makes  the  parallelism  of  mental  phenomena  and  physical  phenom- 
ena seem  a  natural  and  even  a  necessary  thing.  This  argument 
has  its  roots  in  a  remote  past,  and  it  has  influence  with  us  because 
we  inherit  the  conceptions  which  have  come  down  from  the  days 
of  our  fathers  and  find  it  difficult  to  subject  them  to  criticism. 

Descartes  informs  us  that  certain  things  may  be  known  imme- 
diately by  the  "  natural  light "  —  among  others,  that  where  there 
are  qualities  or  affections  there  must  be  a  thing  or  substance  to 
which  these  pertain.  The  same  natural  light  reveals  to  us  that 
we  know  a  thing  or  substance  the  more  clearly  as  we  discover  in  it 
a  greater  number  of  qualities.1  These  notions  are  not,  of  course, 
of  his  own  manufacture.  They  came  to  him  from  the  centuries 
1 "  Principia  Philosophise,"  I,  11. 


322  Mind  and  Matter 

which  preceded  him,  and  they  were  hoary  with  age  when  he  re- 
ceived his  instruction  as  a  schoolboy  at  La  Fleche. 

He  goes  on  to  tell  us  that  every  substance  has  one  principal 
attribute.  Thus,  thinking  is  the  principal  attribute  of  mind,  and 
extension  is  the  principal  attribute  of  body.  The  principal  at- 
tribute constitutes  the  nature  or  essence  of  the  substance.1  We 
must,  hence,  conceive  thought  and  extension  to  be  the  natures  of 
intelligent  and  corporeal  substance ;  and  we  must  even  conceive 
them  as  the  thinking  and  extended  substances  themselves,  as  mind 
and  body.  To  abstract  the  notions  of  thought  and  extension  from 
the  notion  of  substance  is  difficult,  for  the  distinction  is  a  merely 
logical  one  (ipsa  rations,  tantum  diver  see  sunt~).2  The  notion  of 
substance  —  that  which  needs  nothing  but  itself  in  order  to  exist 
—  can  be  applied  in  all  strictness  only  to  God,  but  we  may  call 
mind  and  body  substances  in  a  looser  sense  of  the  word.3 

Here  we  find  material  which  Spinoza,  the  first  parallelist,  built 
into  the  structure  which  he  reveals  to  us  in  the  "  Ethics,"  and  this 
material  constitutes  a  most  important  element  in  its  composition. 
Spinoza  tells  us  of  one  substance,  consisting  of  an  infinity  of  attri- 
butes, only  two  of  which,  thought  and  extension,  are  revealed  to 
us.  Each  attribute  expresses  the  essence  of  the  one  substance. 
The  distinction  between  the  attributes  and  the  substance  Spinoza 
nowhere  makes  clear,  but  the  substance  is  supposed  in  some  way 
to  unify  the  attributes.  The  modes  of  the  attribute  extension  are 
individual  material  things  ;  the  modes  of  the  attribute  thought  are 
individual  ideas.  These  two  sets  of  modes  constitute  two  inde- 
pendent systems ;  everything  in  the  world  of  material  things 
must  be  explained  by  a  reference  to  physical  causes,  and  ideas 
must  find  their  complete  explanation  in  the  world  of  ideas.  An 
idea  cannot  be  caused  by  a  motion  in  matter,  nor  can  it  result 
in  sucli. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  ideas  and  material  things  belong 
to  mutually  independent  systems,  the  world  of  thought  exactly 
mirrors  the  world  of  extension.  Each  corporeal  thing  has  corre- 
sponding to  it  a  mental  thing  that  we  may  call  its  idea,  and  "  the 
order  and  connection  of  ideas  is  the  same  as  the  order  and  con- 
nection of  things."  But,  we  may  ask,  why  should  ideas  and  things 
thus  correspond  ?  How  are  we  to  explain  this  concomitance  in  the 
absence  of  causal  connection?  Spinoza's  answer  —  the  only  an- 

1  "Principia  Philosophise,"  I,  53.  2  Ibid.,  I,  63.  3  Ibid.,  I,  51. 


What  is  Parallelism?  323 

swer  he  has  to  give  to  the  question  —  is  contained  in  the  scholium 
to  the  proposition  just  quoted.  It  reads  as  follows :  — 

"Before  going  farther  we  should  recall  to  mind  this  truth, 
which  has  been  proved  above,  namely,  that  whatever  can  be  per- 
ceived by  infinite  intellect  as  constituting  the  essence  of  substance 
belongs  exclusively  to  the  one  substance,  and  consequently  that 
thinking  substance  and  extended  substance  are  one  and  the  same 
substance,  apprehended  now  under  this,  now  under  that  attribute. 
So,  also,  a  mode  of  extension  and  the  idea  of  that  mode  are  one  and 
the  same  thing,  but  expressed  in  two  ways  —  a  truth  which  certain 
of  the  Hebrews  appear  to  have  seen  as  if  through  a  mist,  in  that 
they  assert  that  God,  the  intellect  of  God,  and  the  things  known 
by  it,  are  one  and  the  same.  For  example,  a  circle  existing  in 
nature,  and  the  idea,  which  also  is  in  God,  of  this  existing  circle, 
are  one  and  the  same  thing,  manifested  through  different  attri- 
butes ;  for  this  reason,  whether  we  conceive  nature  under  the 
attribute  of  extension,  or  under  that  of  thought,  or  under  any 
other  attribute  whatever,  we  shall  find  there  follows  one  and  the 
same  order,  or  one  and  the  same  concatenation  of  causes,  that  is, 
the  same  thing."  1 

From  the  metaphysics  of  Descartes  and  Spinoza  to  the  specula- 
tions of  the  modern  scientist  may  seem  a  far  cry  to  some ;  yet,  as 
regards  the  point  under  discussion,  the  distance  is  so  inconsiderable 
that  it  scarcely  needs  to  be  spanned  by  a  bridge  at  all.  The  notion 
of  substance  as  a  something  "  underlying  "  qualities,  "  having  " 
qualities,  "  explaining  the  coexistence  "  of  qualities,  has  made  its 
appearance  for  many  centuries  in  philosophies  the  most  diverse, 
and  has  made  its  influence  felt  unmistakably.  Even  in  writers  like 
Descartes  and  Spinoza,  in  whose  pages  the  distinction  between  sub- 
stance and  attributes  becomes  almost  a  vanishing  one,  substance 
remains  as  a  ghost  with  a  mission. 

Spinoza's  ghost  is  taken  over  bodily  (sit  venia  verbo^)  by  Clifford, 
of  whom  we  think  as  the  typical  modern  parallelist,  together  with 
Spinoza's  parallelism ;  and  it  is  made  to  perform  the  same  function 
which  busied  it  in  the  seventeenth  century.  It  serves  to  join,  by 

1 "  Ethics,"  II,  7,  scholium.  Spinoza's  philosophy  is  a  confluence  of  distinct 
and  different  streams.  I  have  indicated  only  the  one  whose  current  seems  to  bring 
down  to  us  an  explanation  of  the  parallelism  of  mind  and  body.  For  a  fuller  dis- 
cussion of  the  subject,  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  my  "  Philosophy  of  Spinoza," 
Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  N.Y.,  1894,  Introductory  Note,  and  notes  3  and  55  ;  also  to 
my  monograph  on  "  Spinozistic  Immortality,"  Ginn  and  Co.,  1899,  §§  1-15. 


324  Mind  and  Matter 

the  laying  on  of  its  shadowy  hands,  what  would  otherwise  be  kept 
asunder.  When  we  bear  this  in  mind,  the  somewhat  incoherent 
statements  in  which  Clifford  describes  for  us  the  "  bridge  "  which 
he  has  essayed  to  build  between  matter  and  mind  become  compre- 
hensible. As  long  as  we  only  know  the  fact  that  consciousness 
and  cerebral  disturbances  run  parallel,  we  cannot  be  sure  that 
some  exception  to  the  rule  will  not  be  discovered.  But  if  we  find 
an  explanation  for  this  parallelism,  we  may  enjoy  the  highest  assur- 
ance that  science  can  give  that  there  will  be  no  exception.  Behold 
the  explanation :  Consciousness  and  cerebral  change  are  the  same 
thing  ;  it  is,  hence,  absurd  to  think  of  them  as  divorced. 

But  how  can  they  be  the  same  thing  when  they  cannot  even 
exist  in  the  same  world,  but  must  be  relegated  to  different  orders  ? 
They  can  be  the  same  thing  thus  :  "  The  reality  which  underlies 
matter,  the  reality  which  we  perceive  as  matter,  is  the  same  stuff 
which,  being  compounded  together  in  a  particular  way,  produces 
mind.  What  I  perceive  as  your  brain  is  really  in  itself  your  con- 
sciousness, is  You ;  but  then  that  which  I  call  your  brain,  the  ma- 
terial fact,  is  merely  my  perception."  1  "  If  mind  is  the  reality  or 
substance  of  that  which  appears  to  us  as  brain-action,  the  suppo- 
sition of  mind  without  brain  is  the  supposition  of  an  organized 
material  substance  not  affecting  other  substances  (for  if  it  did  it 
might  be  perceived),  and  therefore  not  affected  by  them  ;  in  other 
words,  it  is  the  supposition  of  immaterial  matter. "  2  "  The  reality 
external  to  our  minds  which  is  represented  in  our  minds  as  matter 
is  in  itself  mind-stuff."3 

Now  when  Spinoza  informs  us  that  a  circle  in  nature  and  the 
idea  of  that  circle  are  the  same  thing,  we  know  very  well  that  he 
cannot  mean  to  have  us  understand  that  they  are  the  same  in  the 
strictest  sense,  for  he  finds  it  necessary  to  explain  that  they  are  the 
same  thing  "  manifested  through  different  attributes."  He  assures 
us  that  they  have  nothing  in  common,  that  they  are  not  even  alike, 
for  a  circle  has  a  centre  and  a  circumference,  while  the  idea  of  a 
circle  has  neither  centre  nor  circumference.4  They  are  only  the 
same  thing  in  that  the  substance  underlying  them  is  the  same. 
That  is  to  say,  they  themselves  are  not  the  same,  but  something  else  is 
the  same  with  itself. 

1  "  Lectures  and  Essays,"  London,  1879,  Vol.  II,  pp.  63,  64. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  G6.  *  Ibid.,  p.  87. 

4  "  De  Intellectus  Ernendatione,"  ed.  Van  Vloten  and  Land,  1882,  p.  11. 


What  is  Parallelism?  325 

When  we  examine  Clifford's  work,  we  find  that  this  is  precisely 
his  thought  also.  He  is  evidently  speaking  carelessly  when  he 
says,  "  What  I  perceive  as  your  brain  is  really  in  itself  your  con- 
sciousness, is  You,"  for  if  there  is  one  thing  upon  which  he  wishes 
to  insist  more  earnestly  than  upon  anything  else,  it  is  the  fact  that 
your  consciousness  cannot  by  any  possibility  find  a  place  among 
my  perceptions.  It  is  an  eject,  an  outcast,  and  it  has  no  right  to  a 
place  in  the  world  of  objects.  To  identify  it,  then,  with  any  object, 
is  to  talk  nonsense,  as  he  tells  us  again  and  again.  It  is  clear, 
then,  that  he  must  mean  the  above  statement  of  the  identity  of 
object  and  eject  to  be  taken  in  a  Pickwickian  sense.  It  is  the 
"  reality  "  or  "  substance  "  that  is  one  ;  your  brain  and  your  con- 
sciousness are  two  distinct  things. 

The  distinction  between  substance  and  phenomenon  is  not 
more  clearly  drawn  by  Clifford  than  by  Spinoza ;  he  is  evidently 
using  vaguely  a  vague  word  which  he  has  inherited,  with  its  bur- 
den of  associations,  from  the  past.  He  is  not  as  impartial  as 
Spinoza,  for  he  evidently  inclines  in  the  above  extracts  to  make  the 
substance  or  reality  identical  with  one  set  of  phenomena  while  re- 
garding the  other  set  as  mere  phenomena.  But  in  this  eccentricity 
he  cannot  be  wholly  consistent,  for  if  he  were,  his  "  bridge  " 
would  be  lost.  He  would  have  nothing  to  join  the  two  sets  of 
phenomena ;  he  would  have  the  two  sets  of  phenomena  alone, 
and  the  question  would  remain,  Why  do  they  go  together  ?  The 
words  "substance"  and  "reality"  with  their  associations  consti- 
tute the  very  being  of  his  "  bridge,"  and  he  must  not  and  does  not 
wholly  rob  them  of  their  meaning. 

The  same  bridge  is  found  satisfactory  by  others.  I  may  cite, 
as  a  typical  instance,  Professor  Hoffding,  an  excellent  writer,  and 
one  who  cannot  be  accused  of  a  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  results 
of  modern  science.  He  reasons  as  follows  :  — 

"  If  it  is  contrary  to  the  doctrine  of  the  persistence  of  physical 
energy  to  suppose  a  transition  from  the  one  province  to  the  other, 
and  if,  nevertheless,  the  two  provinces  exist  in  our  experience  as 
distinct,  then  the  two  sets  of  phenomena  must  be  unfolded  simul- 
taneously, each  according  to  its  laws ;  so  that  for  every  phenom- 
enon in  the  world  of  consciousness  there  is  a  corresponding 
phenomenon  in  the  world  of  matter,  and  conversely  (so  far  as 
there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  conscious  life  is  correlated  with 
material  phenomena).  The  parallels  already  drawn  point  directly 


326  Mind  and  Matter 

to  such  a  relation ;  it  would  be  an  amazing  accident  if,  while  the 
characteristic  marks  repeated  themselves  in  this  way,  there  were  not 
at  the  foundation  an  inner  connection.  Both  the  parallelism  and 
the  proportionality  between  the  activity  of  consciousness  and  cere- 
bral activity  point  to  an  identity  at  bottom.  The  difference  which 
remains,  in  spite  of  the  points  of  agreement,  compels  us  to  suppose 
that  one  and  the  same  principle  has  found  its  expression  in  a  double 
form.  We  have  no  right  to  take  mind  and  body  for  two  beings  or 
substances  in  reciprocal  interaction.  We  are,  on  the  contrary, 
impelled  to  conceive  the  material  interaction  between  the  elements 
composing  the  brain  and  nervous  system,  as  an  outer  form  of  the  in- 
ner ideal  unity  of  consciousness.  •  What  we  in  our  inner  experience 
become  conscious  of  as  thought,  feeling,  and  resolution,  is  thus 
represented  in  the  material  world  by  certain  material  processes  of 
the  brain,  which  as  such  are  subject  to  the  law  of  the  persistence 
of  energy,  although  this  law  cannot  be  applied  to  the  relation 
between  cerebral  and  conscious  processes.  It  is  as  though  the 
same  thing  were  said  in  two  languages."  1 

Again  the  "  same  thing  "  !  Evidently  this  same  thing  is  neither 
inner  nor  outer.  It  is  not  to  be  confused  with  either  uform  of 
expression,"  but  it  is  something  distinct  from  both.  Thoughts  are 
not  identical  with  cerebral  activities,  but  the  one  substance  under- 
lies the  two.  How  does  it  come  that  we  are  inclined  to  regard 
this  underlying  something  as  furnishing  a  satisfactory  explanation 
of  the  concomitance  of  things  so  disparate  ?  What  is  the  key  to 
the  magic  of  the  word  "  substance,"  which  acts  as  an  opiate  upon 
the  restless  questionings  of  so  many  eager  minds  ? 

To  solve  this  problem  we  have  only  to  turn  to  the  notion  of 
substance  as  it  exists  in  the  mind  of  the  plain  man  to-day.  It  is 
much  the  same  that  it  has  been  for  centuries,  and  it  does  not  differ 
greatly  from  that  which  has  lurked  in  comparative  obscurity  in  the 
minds  of  many  philosophers  who  have  thought  that  they  had  aban- 
doned it  for  something  better.  No  man  has  given  a  better  account 
of  the  plain  man's  notion  than  John  Locke,  and  it  is  a  sympathetic 
account,  for  Locke  casts  in  his  lot  here  with  the  plain  man :  — 

"  The  mind  being,  as  I  have  declared,  furnished  with  a  great 
number  of  the  simple  ideas,  conveyed  in  by  the  senses,  as  they  are 
found  in  exterior  things,  or  by  reflection  on  its  own  operations, 
takes  notice  also,  that  a  certain  number  of  these  simple  ideas  go 

1  "  Outlines  of  Psychology,"  English  translation.  London,  1891,  pp.  64,  05. 


What  is  Parallelism?  327 

constantly  together ;  which  being  presumed  to  belong  to  one  thing, 
and  words  being  suited  to  common  apprehensions,  and  made  use  of 
for  quick  despatch,  are  called  so  united  in  one  subject,  by  one 
name ;  which,  by  inadvertency,  we  are  apt  afterward  to  talk  of, 
and  consider  as  one  simple  idea,  which  indeed  is  a  complication  of 
many  ideas  together :  because,  as  I  have  said,  not  imagining  how 
these  simple  ideas  can  subsist  by  themselves,  we  accustom  ourselves 
to  suppose  some  substratum  wherein  they  do  subsist,  and  from 
which  they  do  result,  and  which  therefore  we  call  substance." 1 

It  is  thus  that  we  come  to  have  the  ideas  of  a  man,  a  horse, 
gold,  water,  etc.,  of  which  substances  "whether  any  one  has  any 
other  clear  idea,  further  than  of  certain  simple  ideas  coexisting 
together,  I  appeal  to  every  one's  experience."  Locke  is  a  man  of 
sense.  He  knows  that  men  call  a  bit  of  wood  a  thing  or  substance 
because  they  have  experience  of  the  fact  that  a  certain  group  of 
qualities  coexist  Jiinc  et  nunc,  and  that  one  such  group  is  not  to  be 
confounded  with  another.  He  knows,  too,  that  they  talk  as 
though  they  were  not  here  dealing  with  a  complex  of  experiences, 
but  with  "  one  simple  idea."  Finally,  he  knows  that  they  are 
unwilling  to  regard  the  bundle  of  experiences  as  the  whole  of  the 
thing,  but  attribute  to  them  some  obscure  source  or  cause  which 
they  regard  as  the  substance  or  even  as  the  "  thing."  He  does  not 
pretend  to  know  anything  about  this  substance,  and  he  calls  atten- 
tion as  clearly  as  one  could  wish  to  the  fact  that  men  only  assume 
it  to  exist  because  they  observe  that  certain  qualities  "  go  constantly 
together."  One  need  not  be  a  Lockian  to  see  the  justice  of  this 
analysis.  One  may  agree  with  the  plain  man,  or  one  may  scout 
his  notion  of  substance ;  but  the  fact  that  he  thinks  of  the  thing  in 
this  way  it  is  not  reasonable  to  deny. 

Now  it  is  important  to  notice  that  neither  the  plain  man  nor 
the  philosopher  pretends  to  know  the  substance  except  through  its 
qualities.  The  conception  of  substance  is,  at  bottom,  but  a  recog- 
nition of  a  certain  concomitance  of  phenomena.  When  we  see 
an  apple  we  can  also  touch  it,  taste  it,  smell  it.  Why  can  we  ? 
Because  the  apple  is  there,  the  one  apple,  the  reality,  the  sub- 
stance, the  underlying  something  that  manifests  itself  to  the 
various  senses  in  these  divers  ways.  How  do  we  know  that  the 
one  apple  is  there  ?  Because  we  can  see  it,  touch  it,  taste  it,  smell 
it.  Thus  the  concomitance  of  the  phenomena  guarantees  the, 
1  "  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding,"  Book  II,  Chapter  23,  §  1. 


328  Mind  and  Matter 

existence   of   the  substance,  and  the  presence  of  the  substance 
explains  the  concomitance  of  the  phenomena. 

It  is  not  possible  for  a  man  to  walk  around  in  a  much  smaller 
circle  than  this,  yet  many  persons  walk  around  in  this  circle  with 
a  good  deal  of  satisfaction  to  themselves.  As  we  watch  them  do 
it,  a  little  reflection  brings  us  to  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  their 
behavior  is  not  so  wholly  irrational  as  it  appears  on  the  surface. 
Their  explanation  of  the  concomitance  of  phenomena  by  their 
reference  to  a  substance  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  reference 
of  this  particular  case  of  concomitance  to  the  innumerable  other 
cases  of  a  similar  concomitance  furnished  by  their  experience  as 
a  whole.  The  individual  instance  has  been  explained  by  being 
brought  under  a  general  law,  as  all  individual  instances  of  any 
sort  must  be  in  order  to  be  explained. 

We  can  now  understand  clearly  just  how  much  force  we  ought 
to  allow  to  Clifford's  argument  that  consciousness  and  cerebral 
activity  not  only  go  together,  but  must  go  together.  He  has  dis- 
covered that  they  are  one  and  the  same  thing  —  not  strictly  one 
and  the  same  thing,  but  one  and  the  same  as  two  manifestations  of 
one  and  the  same  substance  are  one  and  the  same.  Stripped  of  its 
mysticism  and  of  all  needless  obscurity,  this  statement  amounts 
to  just  this :  The  concomitance  of  consciousness  and  cerebral 
activity  is  not  an  inexplicable  thing  to  which  no  parallel  can  be 
found  in  our  experience ;  it  is  simply  an  instance  of  the  con- 
comitance of  "  aspects  "  or  "  manifestations  "  which  we  find  all 
about  us  when  we  are  dealing  with  "  substances,"  "  things,"  or 
"realities."  It  is  one  of  a  class,  not  an  isolated  instance.  In 
other  words,  mind  and  brain  are  related  as  are  the  color  and  smell 
of  the  apple. 

Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  Clifford  has  quite  forgotten 
how  widely  his  doctrine  has  separated  mind  and  brain.  It  puts 
them  in  different  and  independent  worlds.  What  would  we  think 
of  the  concomitance  of  the  qualities  which  constitute  our  notion 
of  an  apple,  if  the  color  always  appeared  in  one  mind,  the  taste  in 
another,  the  smell  in  a  third,  and  the  tactual  qualities  in  a  fourth, 
the  group  as  a  whole  never  making  its  appearance  in  any  one 
consciousness  ? 

Evidently  Clifford's  "  bridge  "  rests  upon  an  obliteration  of  the 
distinction  between  mind  and  brain.  His  argument  conceives  of 
the  concomitance  of  mind  and  brain  after  a  material  analogy ;  and 


What  is  Parallelism?  329 

we  are  inclined  to  view  it  as  satisfactory  only  because  the  natural 
man  is  ever  ready  to  materialize  mind,  to  think  of  it  as  being  there 
where  the  brain  is,  and  as  related  to  the  brain  somewhat  as  the  one 
side  of  a  door  is  related  to  the  other. 

"  It  would  be  an  amazing  accident,"  writes  Hoffding,  "  if,  while 
the  characteristic  marks  repeated  themselves  in  this  way,  there 
were  not  at  the  foundation  an  inner  connection."  Why  this 
amazement?  Clearly  because  Hoffding  assumes  that  we  have 
abundant  evidence,  in  our  experience,  of  the  fact  that  where  there 
is  invariable  concomitance  there  is  '•  inner  connection,"  i.e.  there 
is  substantial  identity.  But  what  if  the  concomitance  of  mind  and 
brain  be  of  a  startlingly  different  sort  from  that  observed  in  all 
these  instances  ?  what  if  it  be  a  something  unique  in  our  experi- 
ence? Can  we  assimilate  it  to  the  other  instances  and  regard  it  as 
explained,  simply  by  invoking  the  magic  of  the  word  "  substance  "  ? 
When  we  do  this,  we  are  explaining  concomitance  of  one  sort 
here,  by  pointing  out  that  there  is  concomitance  of  a  wholly 
different  sort  there,  and  that  there  are  many  instances  of  the 
latter.  We  see  instances  of  concomitance  on  every  hand ;  what 
more  natural,  says  Hoffding,  than  that  there  should  be  con- 
comitance of  mind  and  brain.  In  any  such  argument  the  unique- 
ness of  the  latter  kind  of  concomitance  is  allowed  to  drop  quietly 
out  of  sight :  concomitance  is  concomitance  —  and  the  nakedness 
of  our  fallacy  is  hidden  from  our  view  by  a  whole  apron  of  fig 
leaves,  such  as  "  substance,"  "  underlying  reality,"  "  identity 
at  bottom,"  "inner  connection,"  "aspects,"  "inner  and  outer," 
"parallelism,"  and  the  like. 

Every  one  of  these  carries  with  it  materialistic  suggestions, 
just  such  suggestions  as  Clifford  was  most  anxious  to  strip  away 
from  his  notion  of  mind.  If  we  make  the  concomitance  of  "ob- 
ject "  and  "  eject "  seem  natural  by  using  vague  words  which  sur- 
reptitiously assimilate  "  ejects  "  to  "  objects,"  we  are  solving  our 
problem  by  annihilating  it.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  point  out  at 
great  length  that  a  given  fact  is  unique,  and  then  to  expend  our 
ingenuity  in  showing  that  it  is  not  unique  at  all,  but  may  be 
assimilated  to  a  multitude  of  other  facts  and  thus  given  an 
explanation. 

The  materialistic  suggestion  in  Clifford's  words  is  quite  unmis- 
takable :  "  The  reality  which  underlies  matter,  the  reality  which 
we  perceive  as  matter,  is  the  same  stuff  which,  being  compounded 


330  Mind  and  Matter 

together  in  a  particular  way,  produces  mind.  What  I  perceive  as 
your  brain  is  really  in  itself  your  consciousness,  is  You ;  but  then 
that  which  I  call  your  brain,  the  material  fact,  is  merely  my  per- 
ception." Where  is  the  reality  which  we  perceive  as  matter? 
Where  are  you,  while  I  am  perceiving  your  brain  ?  Are  you  not 
out  there,  where  I  seem  to  perceive  the  brain  ?  If  you  are  not  in 
this  direction  from  my  body  rather  than  in  that,  if  you  are  no 
nearer  to  this  particular  brain  than  to  the  brain  of  a  man  I  never 
saw  and  never  shall  see,  how  comes  it  that  I  am  perceiving  you, 
that  you  are  affecting  me,  when  I  see  this  brain  ?  Is  the  reality  or 
substance  of  the  brain  not  to  be  found  where  the  brain  is  ?  Surely 
the  reader  can  see  that  Clifford's  words  draw  all  their  force  from 
a  materialistic  "  outside  "  and  "  inside  "  conception.  We  have 
here  the  philosophy  of  the  plain  man  forced  to  do  service  in  a  new 
field,  but  equipped  with  all  its  old  arms  and  accoutrements. 

The  "  bridge,"  then,  that  is  to  unite  consciousness  with  cere- 
bral activities  turns  out  to  be  no  better  than  a  materialistic  mis- 
conception. So  far  from  explaining  parallelism,  if  parallelism  be 
rigorously  adhered  to,  and  mind  and  brain  really  kept  distinct,  it 
must  fall.  Thus  we  see  that,  whether  we  read  the  works  of  the 
antiparallelists  or  the  works  of  the  parallelists,  we  must  be  on  our 
guard  against  being  misled  into  conceiving  of  parallelism  in  a 
materialistic  way,  i.e.  into  virtually  denying  its  existence.  It  is 
not  easy  to  use  language  which  may  not  suggest  error ;  the  very 
word  "  parallelism  "  has  associations  which  the  doctrine  that  passes 
by  that  name  is  called  into  being  to  deny,  though  it  is  perhaps  a 
trifle  less  objectionable  than  the  various  other  words  which  may  be 
made  to  serve  the  same  purpose.  Our  only  safety  lies  in  not  allow- 
ing ourselves  to  be  influenced  by  the  associations  which  cling  to 
words,  but  in  compelling  ourselves  to  bear  in  mind  just  how  much  a 
word  ought  to  mean  when  it  is  put  to  a  particular  use  ;  that  is  to  say, 
we  are  only  safe  when  we  bear  in  mind  just  how  far  our  facts  go. 
This  is  a  sort  of  empiricism  to  which  no  reasonable  man  can  object. 
It  is,  of  course,  a  sort  of  empiricism  that  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to 
carry  consistently  into  effect. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  doctrine  of  parallelism  loses  both 
its  plausibility  and  its  attractiveness  when  it  is  thus  rigorously 
understood.  The  cerebral  change  is  admitted  to  be  a  sign  of  the 
mental  phenomenon,  but  sign  and  thing  signified  are  relegated  to 
orders  of  things  so  different,  that  all  of  those  figures  of  speech  by 


What  is  Parallelism?  331 

the  aid  of  which  we  ordinarily  grasp  the  significance  of  the  rela- 
tionship are  banished.  We  seem  to  ourselves  to  realize  with  a 
good  deal  of  vividness  what  is  meant  by  the  parallelism  of  mind 
and  brain  so  long  as  we  are  permitted  to  conceive  the  two  as  phe- 
nomena of  the  one  substance,  as  manifestations  of  the  same  under- 
lying reality,  as  aspects  of  one  thing,  as  at  bottom  identical,  as 
having  an  inner  connection,  etc.  If  we  lose  these  phrases,  how 
shall  we  conceive  it?  Minds  and  bodies  seem  to  float  apart,  and 
the  imagination  is  left  brooding  upon  a  void. 

But  in  considering  this  objection  it  is  well  to  remember  that 
it  is  not  merely  against  the  doctrine  of  parallelism  that  it  can  be 
brought.  Material  analogies  have  always  been  pressed  into  the 
service  of  the  attempt  to  conceive  clearly  what  is  assumed  to  be 
not  material.  How  can  it  be  otherwise  ?  The  very  words  we  use 
to  denote  mental  functions  of  every  description  have  been  exhumed 
from  the  soil,  torn  from  the  world  of  matter,  and  they  have  been 
transported  to  another  sphere  still  reeking  with  earthly  odors.  It 
is  only  the  purgatorial  fires  of  reflection  that  can  purge  these 
away,  and  they  sometimes  seem  unequal  to  the  task.  Of  what 
absurdities  may  one  not  be  guilty  when  one  has  described  con- 
sciousness as  an  "  internal  light "  ? 1  What  is  suggested  to  the 
mind  by  the  word  "intuition"?2  When  we  speak  of  conscious- 
ness as  an  "agent,"3  where  do  we  get  the  meaning  of  the  word? 
What  fallacies  may  not  lurk  behind  the  ambiguity  of  the  phrase 
"direction  of  the  attention"?  That  one  should  always  and  under 
all  circumstances  keep  one's  mind  free  from  the  materialistic  asso- 
ciations of  such  forms  of  expression,  it  is  too  much  to  expect,  but 
it  does  not  seem  unreasonable  to  expect  a  man  to  exercise  a  jeal- 
ous watchfulness  lest  he  be  tripped  up  by  them. 

So  it  is  with  parallelism.  For  the  purposes  of  common  life, 
and  for  the  purposes  of  many  special  psychological  investigations, 
it  may  matter  little  that  a  man  loosely  conceives  of  mind  and  brain 
as  "manifestations,"  "aspects,"  or  "sides."  But  if  he  takes  such 
conceptions  seriously,  and  builds  a  theory  upon  them,  he  is  build- 
ing upon  sand.  A  man  is  not  in  duty  bound  to  be  a  metaphysician 
at  the  breakfast  table,  but  when  he  does  set  out  to  be  a  metaphysi- 
cian, he  ought  to  be  a  good  one. 

1  Hamilton,  "Lectures  on  Metaphysics,"  XI. 

2  McCosh,  '-First  and  Fundamental  Truths,"  Part  I,  Chapters  I-IV. 
8  Green,  "  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,"  §  32. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  MAN  AND   THE   CANDLESTICK 

So  much  for  the  general  conception  of  parallelism  and  its  justi- 
fication through  'the  assumption  of  an  "  inner  identity."  It  is  now 
time  that  we  ask  ourselves  how  the  parallelist  may  know  that 
mind  and  matter  are  parallel,  even  as  a  matter  of  "brute  fact." 
The  reflective  reader  will  see  that,  as  in  the  "  Thousand-and-one 
Nights  "  the  Story  of  the  Little  Hunchback  leads  on  to  the  Story 
of  the  Christian  Merchant,  and  that  to  the  Story  of  the  Sultan's 
Purveyor,  so  Clifford's  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  parallelism,  as 
found  in  the  essay  on  "  Body  and  Mind,"  leads  naturally  to  the 
Story  of  the  Man  and  the  Candlestick.  Certain  difficulties,  which 
enter  and  make  their  bow  in  the  first  essay,  must  be  allowed  to 
speak  their  lines  in  the  second,  and  must  step  out  into  the  glare 
of  the  footlights,  that  they  may  be  inspected  by  the  audience. 

We  have  seen  that  the  argument  for  the  parallelism  of  con- 
sciousness and  cerebral  activity  carefully  distinguishes  between  the 
external  object,  the  retinal  image  of  that  object  caused  by  rays  of 
light  from  it  entering  the  eye,  the  cerebral  image  due  to  the  dis- 
turbance of  the  retina,  which  cerebral  image  exists  in  the  region 
of  the  optic  thalami,  and  the  mental  image,  which  constitutes  the 
perception  of  the  object.  These  four  appear  to  be  quite  distinct 
from  each  other,  and  to  be  divisible  into  two  widely  different 
classes. 

The  external  object,  the  disturbed  retina,  and  the  stimulated 
ganglion  belong  to  the  one  class.  They  are  all  matter  in  motion. 
They  stand  to  each  other  in  relations  of  causality,  and  the  investi- 
gation of  the  conditions  of  all  three  falls  within  the  province  of 
the  science  of  mechanics.  The  mental  image,  on  the  other  hand, 
stands  by  itself.  It  cannot  be  given  a  place  in  the  same  series  with 
the  others,  but  it  is  "parallel"  to  one  of  them,  to  the  cerebral 
image.  It  is  not  caused  by  the  disturbance  in  the  ganglion,  but 
first  comes  into  being  with  it.  It  is  mind,  the  other  three  are  mat- 

332 


The  Man  and  the  Candlestick  333 

ter,  and  between  mind  and  matter  there  is  a  gulf  fixed.  The  only 
point  at  which  there  is  any  hope  that  a  "  bridge  "  may  be  thrown 
across  the  gulf  is  at  the  cerebral  disturbance,  for  there  the  mind 
seems  to  come,  if  one  may  use  such  a  phrase,  nearest  to  matter. 
Let  0  represent  the  object,  MI  the  retinal  image,  CI  the  cerebral 
image,  and  JfJthe  mental  image,  and  we  may  express  the  relations 
of  the  four  to  each  other  thus  :  — 

O RI Ctf 

MI 

We  are  to  conceive  0,  RI,  and  CI  as  belonging  to  an  order  of 
things  in  which  MI  can  find  no  place.  It  can  only  be  parallel  to 
something  which  has  a  place  in  that  order. 

But  even  in  the  essay  in  which  Clifford  so  carefully  fixes  these 
distinctions,  there  occur  certain  sentences  which  seem  to  obliterate 
them  and  to  confuse  the  scheme.  Thus  we  are  told  that  "that 
which  I  call  your  brain,  the  material  fact,  is  merely  my  perception."  1 
Does  this  mean  that  0  is  not  an  inhabitant  of  a  different  sphere 
from  that  inhabited  by  MI?  Does  it  mean  that  it  is  identical  with 
MI — not  identical  in  the  loose  sense  in  which  men  use  the  word  when 
they  speak  of  one  thing  as  being  the  "  substance  "  or  "  underlying 
reality  "  of  something  else,  but  identical  in  a  strict  sense  ?  If  0  is 
not  something  external,  but  is  really  my  perception,  i.e.  is  MI, 
then  what  is  the  relation  of  CI,  which  is  supposed  to  be  in  the  same 
world  with  it,  and  to  be  a  thing  of  the  same  kind,  to  the  MI  with 
which  it  is  assumed  to  be  parallel  — •  with  which,  we  seem  justified 
in  saying,  it  has  been  proved  to  be  parallel,  if  the  argument  for 
parallelism  has  any  weight  at  all  ? 

The  difficulty  here  suggested  does  not  have  to  be  hunted  out 
from  its  cover,  but  stalks  boldly  into  the  open  and  menaces  us  of 
its  own  accord,  in  Clifford's  essay  "  On  the  Nature  of  Things-in- 
themselves  "  :  — 

"  Suppose  that  I  see  a  man  looking  at  a  candlestick.  Both  of 
them  are  objects,  or  phenomena,  in  my  mind.  An  image  of  the 
candlestick,  in  the  optical  sense,  is  formed  upon  his  retina,  and 
nerve  messages  go  from  all  parts  of  this  to  form  what  we  call  a 
cerebral  image  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  optic  thalami 
in  the  inside  of  his  brain.  This  cerebral  image  is  a  certain  com- 
plex of  disturbances  in  the  matter  of  these  organs ;  it  is  a  mate- 
1 "  Lectures  and  Essays,"  Vol.  II,  p.  64. 


334  Mind  and  Matter 

rial  or  physical  fact,  therefore  a  group  of  my  possible  sensations, 
just  as  the  candlestick  is.  The  cerebral  image  is  an  imperfect  rep- 
resentation of  the  candlestick,  corresponding  to  it  point  for  point  in 
a  certain  way.  Both  the  candlestick  and  the  cerebral  image  are 
matter;  but  one  material  complex  represents  the  other  material 
complex  in  an  imperfect  way. 

"  Now  the  candlestick  is  not  the  external  reality  whose  exist- 
ence is  represented  in  the  man's  mind ;  for  the  candlestick  is  a  mere 
perception  in  my  mind.  Nor  is  the  cerebral  image  the  man's  per- 
ception of  the  candlestick  ;  for  the  cerebral  image  is  merely  an  idea 
of  a  possible  perception  in  my  mind.  But  there  is  a  perception  in 
the  man's  mind,  which  we  may  call  the  mental  image ;  and  this 
corresponds  to  some  external  reality.  The  external  reality  bears 
the  same  relation  to  the  mental  image  that  the  (phenomenal)  can- 
dlestick bears  to  the  cerebral  image.  Now  the  candlestick  and  the 
cerebral  image  are  both  matter ;  they  are  made  of  the  same  stuff. 
Therefore  the  external  reality  is  made  of  the  same  stuff  as  the 
man's  perception  or  mental  image,  that  is,  it  is  made  of  mind-stuff. 
And  as  the  cerebral  image  represents  imperfectly  the  candlestick, 
in  the  same  way  and  to  the  same  extent  the  mental  image  repre- 
sents the  reality  external  to  his  consciousness.  Thus  in  order  to 
find  the  thing-in-itself  which  is  represented  by  any  object  in  my 
consciousness  such  as  a  candlestick,  I  have  to  solve  this  question 
in  proportion,  or  rule  of  three  :  — 

As  the  physical  configuration  of  my  cerebral  image  of  the  object, 

is  to  the  physical  configuration  of  the  object, 

so  is  my  perception  of  the  object  (the  object  regarded  as  complex 

of  my  feelings) 
to  the  thing-in-itself."  1 

It  is  extremely  desirable  that  we  should  get  these  several 
entities  and  their  relations  quite  clear.  According  to  the 
parallelistic  scheme,  we  may  try  to  represent  them  in  the  following 
formula :  — 

C'l' R'F O RI CI 

M'l'  MI 

1  Op.  at.,  pp.  85,  86.  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  Clifford  occupies  a  dif- 
ferent standpoint  in  his  two  essays.  The  essay  on  "  Body  and  Mind  "  was  printed 
in  the  Fortnightly  Revieic,  December,  1874  ;  that  on  "  The  Nature  of  Things-in-them- 
selves  "  was  printed  in  Mind,  January,  1878,  but  it  had  been  read  before  the  "Meta- 
physical Society  "  in  1874.  See  Pollock's  Introduction,  Vol.  I,  p.  39. 


The  Man  and  the  Candlestick  335 

Here  0  is  the  candlestick,  or  object ;  R I  is  the  man's  retinal 
image,  OThis  cerebral  image,  MI  his  mental  image  ;  similarly  R'F 
is  my  retinal  image,  C'l'  my  cerebral  image,  and  M' T  my  mental 
image  or  perception.  We  have,  thus,  before  us  an  object,  the 
candlestick  at  which  the  man  is  looking,  two  brains,  and  two 
minds,  or,  at  least,  two  perceptions,  which  are  parallel  to  the  two 
brains. 

But  in  this  formula  we  look  in  vain  for  one  of  the  things 
mentioned  in  the  above  extract,  —  the  X  which  is  to  be  discovered 
by  the  aid  of  the  mathematical  proportion  with  which  the  extract 
ends,  the  truly  external  object.  To  understand  the  significance  of 
this  object  we  have  to  bear  in  mind  that  Clifford  does  not  regard 
brains  as  the  only  things  in  nature  that  have  psychic  parallels. 
He  looks  upon  all  nature  as  animated,  i.e.  he  believes  that  just  as 
minds  correspond  to  cerebral  activities,  so  something  akin  to  con- 
sciousness, something  more  or  less  like  it,  mind-stuff  corresponds 
in  the  same  way  to  all  motions  in  matter.  "  A  moving  molecule 
of  inorganic  matter  does  not  possess  mind  or  consciousness ;  but  it 
possesses  a  small  piece  of  mind-stuff.  When  molecules  are  so 
combined  together  as  to  form  a  film  on  the  underside  of  a  jelly- 
fish, the  elements  of  mind-stuff  which  go  along  with  them  are  so 
combined  as  to  form  the  faint  beginnings  of  sentience." l 

Even  such  a  thing  as  a  candlestick  has,  accordingly,  we  will 
not  say  a  mind,  but,  at  all  events,  a  certain  amount  of  mind-stuff. 
But  Clifford  regards  a  man's  mind  as  the  reality  which  we  per- 
ceive as  his  brain,  as  the  thing  that  we  must  conceive  as  truly 
external.  The  mind-stuff  of  the  candlestick,  and  of  every 
material  object,  must  be  granted  a  similar  externality.  It  is  the 
"  reality  "  of  the  material  thing ;  it  is  the  thing-in-itself,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  thing  as  perceived,  the  merely  material.2  If  we 
take  all  these  rudimentary  souls  into  account,  we  must  amend  our 
formula  as  follows  :  — 

C'l' R'l' _O RI Cl 

M'l'         E"I"          El          E'l'          MI 

That  is  to  say,  we  must  recognize  a  world  of  material  things, 
which  belong  to  the  one  order  and  interact  with  each  other  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  mechanics ;  and  we  must  recognize  that  each 
material  thing  has  as  its  parallel  a  psychic  thing,  which  belongs  to 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  85.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  87. 


336  Mind  and  Matter 

a  different  order.  Thus  0,  the  material  candlestick,  has  as  its 
parallel  El,  an  external  image  —  which  I  call  an  image,  not 
because  it  resembles  0,  but  because  it  is  supposed  to  be  a  thing  of 
the  same  general  nature  as  MI  and  M ' I',  and  which  I  call  external 
because  we  are  here  looking  at  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
two  latter. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  entities  in  the  lower  line  are  not 
supposed  to  form  one  system  as  do  those  in  the  upper.  This  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that  OI  is  explained  by  a  direct  reference 
to  RI,  and  RI  by  a  direct  reference  to  0.  No  descent  to  the 
lower  line  appears  to  be  necessary.  But  El  can  only  be  reached 
from  MI  by  passing  through  <7Jand  0.  It  is  by  this  road  and  by 
this  alone  that  Clifford  proposes  to  reach  it. 

I  need  not  stop  here  to  weigh  all  the  considerations  that 
induced  Clifford  to  distribute  minds  or  something  like  minds  to 
all  objects  in  nature.  Of  course,  had  he  held  a  nervous  system 
to  be  the  essential  concomitant  of  mind,  there  could  have  been  no 
question  as  to  the  existence  of  the  El  which  is  supposed  to  con- 
stitute the  external  candlestick.  On  such  a  supposition  there  is 
no  external  candlestick,  in  this  sense  of  the  word  "  external,"  and 
the  question  in  proportion  becomes  meaningless.  But  when  a 
man  has  made  mind  the  reality  of  brain,  the  substance  which 
makes  itself  apparent  as  brain,  the  step  is  a  short  one  to  the  attri- 
bution of  minds  of  some  sort  even  to  candlesticks.  Mind  is 
the  reality  or  substance  which  manifests  itself  as  brain ;  candle- 
sticks are  manifestations,  they  appear  just  as  brains  do  ;  must  there 
not  be,  in  this  case  also,  some  reality  that  is  making  its  appear- 
ance ?  What  can  it  be  ?  It  must  be  mind,  of  course,  or  at  least 
mind-stuff,  for  the  only  reality  which  we  know  directly  is  mind. 
Once  make  mind  the  reality  of  material  things,  and  it  seems 
absurd  to  deny  that  any  material  thing  has  some  sort  of  a  mind, 
for  surely  everything  material  has  some  sort  of  reality. 

If  we  reason  thus,  and  assume  that  there  must  be  an  external 
candlestick  other  than  0,  the  manifestation,  —  if  we  reason  that 
there  exists  also  El,  the  reality  underlying  that  manifestation,  — 
then  Clifford's  proposed  method  of  discovering  that  reality,  seems, 
on  the  surface  at  least,  a  plausible  one.  C'l',  my  cerebral  image, 
is  a  manifestation,  a  material  thing ;  its  reality  is  my  mental  image, 
M'l'.  And  0  is  a  manifestation,  a  material  thing;  its  reality  is 
El.  If  C'l'  and  0  were  exactly  alike,  it  would  seem  natural  to 


The  Man  and  the  Candlestick  337 

expect  M' I'  and  Elio  be  exactly  alike  too,  for  where  there  is  no 
difference  in  two  manifestations,  it  seems  natural  that  there  should 
be  no  difference  in  the  two  underlying  realities.  But  C'l1  and  0 
are  not  exactly  alike.  We  may  assume,  then,  that  as  C'F  is  to  0, 
so  is  the  reality  of  C'l',  i.e.  my  mental  image,  to  El,  the  reality 
of  0. 

Of  course,  even  those  who  have  no  theoretical  objection  to  Clif- 
ford's way  of  reaching  El  must  admit  that,  in  the  existing  state  of 
our  knowledge,  it  is  of  no  value  whatever,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  no  man  knows  how  C'l'  and  0  differ.  C'l'  is  "  an  imperfect 
representation  of  the  candlestick,  corresponding  to  it  point  for 
point  in  a  certain  way,"  but  in  what  sense  it  is  imperfect  and  how 
imperfect  it  is,  we  do  not  know  at  all.  "  If  certain  parts  of  the 
retina  of  my  eye,  having  light  thrown  upon  them,  are  disturbed  so 
as  to  produce  the  figure  of  a  square,  then  certain  little  pieces  of 
gray  matter  in  this  ganglion  (the  optic  thalami),  which  are  dis- 
tributed we  do  not  know  how,  will  also  be  disturbed,  and  the 
impression  corresponding  to  that  is  a  square."1  The  cerebral 
image  is  a  thing  inferred ;  it  has  been  directly  inspected  by  no 
man,  and  what  its  precise  nature  may  be  is  as  yet  not  even  a 
matter  to  be  conjectured.  Hence,  our  question  in  proportion 
reduces  itself  to  this :  — 

As  an  unknown  quantity  is  to  0, 

So  is  M'l'  to  El,  another  unknown  quantity. 

This  difficulty  is,  however,  a  practical  one,  and  it  is  possible 
to  hope  that,  with  the  growth  of  human  knowledge,  something 
definite  may  come  to  be  known  about  the  cerebral  image.  There 
was  a  time  when  the  retinal  image  was  equally  unknown,  and  now 
physiologists  have  a  good  deal  to  say  about  it.  If  the  cerebral 
image  does  come  to  be  known,  our  two  unknown  qualities  will 
be  reduced  to  one,  and  the  search  for  El,  under  such  circum- 
stances, does  not  seem,  on  the  face  of  it,  absurd. 

But  a  far  more  serious  difficulty  than  this  faces  us  in  the  extract 
given  above,  and  one  which  seems  to  threaten  the  destruction  of 
the  whole  parallelistic  scheme.  It  is  this :  I  see  a  man  looking  at 
a  candlestick.  Clifford  tells  me  that  both  the  man  and  the 
candlestick  are  objects  or  phenomena  in  my  mind.  An  image 
of  the  candlestick  is  formed  upon  the  man's  retina,  and  nerve- 

i  "Body  and  Mind,"  p.  62. 


338  Mind  and  Matter 

messages  go  from  this  to  form  a  cerebral  image  somewhere  inside 
of  his  brain.  This  cerebral  image  is  a  material  fact,  and  is,  hence, 
a  group  of  my  possible  sensations,  just  as  the  candlestick  is.  That 
there  may  be  no  mistake  about  the  candlestick,  Clifford  points 
out  that  it  is  not  the  external  reality  whose  existence  is  repre- 
sented in  the  man's  mind,  and  reiterates  the  statement  that  it  is 
a  mere  perception  in  my  mind.  He  adds  that  the  cerebral  image 
is  not  the  man's  perception  of  the  candlestick,  for  the  cerebral 
image  is  merely  the  idea  of  a  possible  perception  in  my  mind. 
Now,  we  have  seen  that  the  parallelistic  scheme  as  amended  by 
Clifford  is  as  follows  :  — 

C'l' R'l' _0 RI CI 

MM'         E"I"          El  E'l'         MI 

This  is  to  say,  my  mind  is  parallel  with  my  cerebral  activity ; 
in  the  formula  it  is  represented  by  M'l'.  This  M'l'  does  not  cor- 
respond to  the  whole  universe  of  matter ;  it  does  not  correspond  to 
the  whole  of  my  body ;  it  does  not  even  correspond  to  the  whole 
of  my  nervous  system.  It  corresponds  only  to  certain  parts  of  my 
brain :  "  there  is  no  sensation  till  the  message  has  got  to  the 
optic  ganglion,  for  this  reason,  that  if  you  press  the  optic 
nerve  behind  the  eye,  you  can  produce  the  sensation  of  light." l 
Nor  must  we  forget  that  everything  in  my  mind,  every  perception 
that  I  can  possibly  have  and  every  memory  of  a  perception,  must 
belong  to  this  M'l'.2  Taken  together,  these  things  constitute  the 
reality  of  C'2',  which  is  my  brain  in  action. 

But  now  we  are  told  that  0  and  CTare  my  actual  or  possible 
sensations,  since  they  are  material  facts.  In  other  words,  we  are 
told  that  they  must  take  their  place  as  parts  of  M'l'.  And  as  RI, 
R'l',  and  C'l'  are  also  material  facts  —  are  parts  of  the  same  mate- 
rial world  with  0  and  CI —  it  follows,  of  course,  that  they  also  must 
be  regarded  as  my  actual  or  possible  sensations,  and  as  constituent 
parts  of  M' T .  It  is  palpably  absurd  to  put  half  of  the  material 
world  in  M'l',  and  to  banish  the  other  half  to  a  totally  different 
sphere.  Of  this  absurdity  no  parallelist  worthy  of  the  name  can 
be  guilty.  Hence  I  must  regard  the  whole  of  the  upper  row  in 
our  formula  —  my  brain,  my  retina,  the  candlestick,  the  other 

1  "Body  and  Mind,"  p.  51. 

2 1  speak  here  a  little  loosely,  but  it  will  not  mislead  the  reader.  More  strictly, 
these  things  must  lie  classed  icith  M'l',  as  the  reality  of  my  brain  in  action. 


The  Man  and  the  Candlestick  339 

man's  retina,  his  brain,  and  everything  else  that  is  material  — 
as  nothing  else  than  my  actual  or  possible  sensations,  my  mind. 

Were  it  possible  to  do  so,  I  should  be  glad  to  write  out,  for  the 
sake  of  clearness,  the  parallelistic  formula  as  amended  to  fit  these 
statements.  For  obvious  reasons  the  thing  cannot  be  done. 
According  to  the  formula,  brain  and  mind  are  parallel ;  they 
are  not  strictly  identical,  but  are  in  different  worlds ;  the  one  is 
the  appearance,  the  outside,  and  the  other  the  reality,  the  inside. 
The  physical  world  gets  along  by  itself ;  mental  facts  merely  "  go 
along  with"  physical  facts  with  which  they  must  never  be  con- 
founded. Here  we  are  told  that  all  the  physical  facts  are  mental 
facts,  are  my  mental  facts.  With  what  are  all  these  mental  facts 
parallel?  Not  with  C'l',  for  that  is  one  among  the  mental  facts. 
One  cannot  make  a  thing  parallel  with  itself  —  at  once  inside  and 
outside.  To  say  that  C'l'  "goes  along  with"  itself  is  mere  non- 
sense, and  to  found  a  scheme  of  things  upon  such  nonsense  is 
nonsense  in  the  second  degree.  It  is  as  impossible  to  represent 
graphically  such  a  doctrine  as  this,  as  it  is  to  represent  graphically 
the  doctrine  of  Cassiodorus  that  the  whole  soul  is  in  each  of  its 
own  parts. 

I  beg  the  reader  to  take  this  in  all  seriousness,  for  the  difficulty 
does  not  arise  out  of  an  unfortunate  turn  of  phrase  which  may  be 
easily  corrected.  It  is  really  fundamental.  The  more  clearly  one 
comprehends  the  parallelistic  doctrine,  the  more  clearly  does  one 
see  that  a  fundamental  distinction  of  two  orders  of  being  is  essen- 
tial to  it.  There  are  physical  facts  and  there  are  mental  facts. 
Between  these  there  is  a  correspondence,  but  the  series  never 
intersect.  The  first  case  of  correspondence  that  I  can  establish, 
and  the  case  from  which  I  set  out  in  my  attempt  to  prove  cor- 
respondence anywhere  else,  is  the  parallelism  of  my  mind  and  my 
brain.  I  argue  :  as  my  cerebral  image  of  the  object  is  to  the  object, 
so  is  my  perception  of  the  object  to  the  thing  in  itself,  i.e.  to 
the  reality  of  the  object,  its  mind  or  mind-stuff.  Now  I  am  told 
that  my  cerebral  image  of  the  object  is  not  parallel  to  my  per- 
ception of  the  object,  a  thing  in  a  different  world,  but  is  a  percep- 
tion itself  and  in  the  same  mind  with  the  other.  What  becomes 
of  my  parallelism  ? 

It  disappears.  The  doctrine  of  parallelism  cannot  retain  the 
least  plausibility  without  an  external  world  —  I  mean,  without  a 
material  external  world.  The  material  external  world  upon  which 


340  Mind  and  Matter 

I  have  depended  to  establish  the  doctrine,  Clifford  has  rolled 
together  and  put  into  my  mind.  He  offers  me  another  external 
world,  it  is  true  ;  a  world  of  other  minds.  In  place  of  the  candle- 
stick he  puts  the  mind  or  mind-stuff  of  the  candlestick ;  in  place 
of  the  other  man's  brain  he  puts  the  other  man's  mind.  But 
where  is  the  parallelism?  Is  there  a  parallelism  between  the 
candlestick  (now  in  my  mind)  and  the  mind  of  the  candlestick, 
which  is  external  to  my  mind?  Is  there  a  parallelism  between 
the  other  man's  brain  (now  in  my  mind)  and  the  mind  of  the 
other  man,  which  is  external  to  my  mind?  Clifford  has  taken 
great  pains  to  prove  that  what  is  parallel  to  my  mind  and  to  the 
whole  of  my  mind,  including  candlesticks,  brains,  etc.,  as  per- 
ceived by  me,  is  nothing  else  than  my  cerebral  image  or  collection 
of  cerebral  images.  The  reality  of  the  candlestick  I  see,  and  of  the 
brain  I  see,  ought,  then,  to  be  some  disturbance  in  my  own  brain. 
But  what  is  the  relation  of  different  minds  to  each  other,  or  to 
the  images  in  each  other?  Of  this  the  doctrine  of  parallelism  as 
expounded  by  Clifford  gives  not  even  a  hint.  And  if  my  own 
brain  turns  out  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  possible  perception  in 
my  own  mind,  how  can  I  conceive  my  mind  to  be  parallel  with  my 
brain  ?  The  whole  edifice  which  has  been  erected  seems  to  crum- 
ble down  into  a  shapeless  heap  of  absurdity. 

The  collapse  is  inevitable.  The  doctrine  of  parallelism  needs 
an  external  material  world,  and  cannot  get  on  without  one.  Clif- 
ford uses  such  a  world  to  establish  the  doctrine,  and  then  tries  to 
throw  it  away.  When  he  wrote,  the  works  of  Berkeley  and 
Hume  and  Mill  had  made  their  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the 
public,  upon  the  mind  of  the  man  of  science,  as  well  as  upon  that 
of  the  professional  philosopher.  It  seemed  to  many  that  what  we 
perceive  as  material  things  are  only  complexes  of  sensations.  Are 
not  sensations  in  minds  ?  Can  they  be  external  ?  Clifford  under- 
took the  task  of  making  the  whole  material  world  a  part  of  the 
contents  of  a  mind,  and  at  the  same  time  making  the  whole  of 
that  mind  parallel  with  a  part  of  the  material  world.  We  must  at 
least  yield  him  the  admiration  due  to  courage. 

But  suppose  that  he  had  left  the  material  world  external,  and 
had  not  substituted  for  it  a  realm  of  minds,  would  the  parallelistic 
doctrine  be  free  from  difficulties  ?  It  seems  scarcely  necessary  to 
point  out  to  the  reader  that  it  would  meet  the  difficulty  insepa- 
rable from  every  doctrine  which  takes  its  stand  upon  the  psycho- 


The  Man  and  the  Candlestick  341 

logical  standpoint.  If  I  can  know  that  minds  and  brains  are 
parallel,  my  mind  cannot  wholly  be  shut  up  to  the  psychic  con- 
comitants of  brain-changes.  If  all  my  knowledge  really  is 
included  in  the  M'l'  of  the  formula,  the  rest  of  the  formula  is 
non-existent  for  me,  and  I  am  not  a  parallelist. 

To  be  a  parallelist,  such  a  parallelist  as  Clifford  was  while  he 
was  building  up  the  argument,  one  must  be  na'ive ;  one  must  shut 
the  mind  up  to  its  sensations  and  ideas,  and  at  the  same  time  let  it 
know  an  external  world  beyond  its  sensations  and  ideas,  a  world 
of  material  things  to  which  sensations  and  ideas  are  parallel.  The 
inconsistency  is  glaring,  and  it  is  little  wonder  that  the  parallelist 
tries  to  remove  it  by  becoming  a  metaphysician.  This  is  what 
Clifford  has  done.  As  a  metaphysician  he  has  denied  the  material 
world  of  candlesticks  and  brains  to  be  external  at  all.  But  with- 
out something  external  he  cannot  get  on,  and  he,  hence,  offers  us  a 
new  externality  of  a  different  sort.  He  quite  wrecks  his  parallel- 
istic  formula,  it  is  true ;  but  the  fact  that  he  does  so  is  not  at 
once  evident,  and  he  may  still  account  himself  a  parallelist  —  an 
enlightened  parallelist.  The  fact  is  that  he  occupies  two  positions 
at  once,  that  of  the  plain  man,  who  is  a  dualist,  and  that  of  the 
subjective  idealist. 

We  have  seen  what  comes  of  adhering  half-heartedly  to  the 
position  of  the  plain  man,  but  there  is  danger  that  we  may  see  it 
and  straightway  forget  it.  Hence,  I  shall  make  no  apology  for 
discussing  in  the  following  chapter  The  Metaphysics  of  the  "  Tele- 
phone Exchange."  It  ought  to  be  of  some  interest  both  to  the 
metaphysician  and  to  the  man  who  is  accustomed  to  shake  his 
head  over  metaphysicians. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  METAPHYSICS  OF   THE  "TELEPHONE  EXCHANGE" 

WE  are  told  by  Professor  Karl  Pearson  that  the  material  of 
science  is  coextensive  with  the  whole  life,  physical  and  mental,  of 
the  universe.  The  field  of  science  is  coextensive  with  knowledge. 
"  If  there  are  facts,  and  sequences  to  be  observed  among  those 
facts,  then  we  have  all  the  requisites  of  scientific  classification  and 
knowledge.  If  there  are  no  facts,  or  no  sequences  to  be  observed 
among  them,  then  the  possibility  of  all  knowledge  disappears." 
There  are  many  branches  of  science,  and  some  are  better  estab- 
lished than  others,  yet  in  all  it  seems  possible  for  men  to  come  to 
something  like  a  practical  agreement  as  to  fundamental  principles. 

"  The  case  is  quite  different  with  metaphysics  and  those  other 
supposed  branches  of  human  knowledge  which  claim  exemption 
from  scientific  control.  Either  they  are  based  on  an  accurate 
classification  of  facts,  or  they  are  not.  But  if  their  classification 
of  facts  were  accurate,  the  application  of  the  scientific  method 
ought  to  lead  their  professors  to  a  practically  identical  system. 
Now  one  of  the  idiosyncracies  of  metaphysicians  lies  in  this :  that 
each  metaphysician  has  his  own  system,  which,  to  a  large  extent, 
excludes  that  of  his  predecessors  and  colleagues.  Hence  we  must 
conclude  that  metaphysics  are  built  either  on  air  or  on  quicksands 
—  either  they  start  from  no  foundation  in  facts  at  all,  or  the 
superstructure  has  been  raised  before  a  basis  has  been  found  in  the 
accurate  classification  of  facts.  I  want  to  lay  special  stress  on  this 
point.  There  is  no  short  cut  to  truth,  no  way  to  gain  a  knowledge 
of  the  universe  except  through  the  gateway  of  scientific  method. 
The  hard  and  stony  path  of  classifying  facts  and  reasoning  upon 
them  is  the  only  way  to  ascertain  truth.  It  is  the  reason  and  not 
the  imagination  which  must  ultimately  be  appealed  to.  The  poet 
may  give  us,  in  sublime  language,  an  account  of  the  origin  and 
purpose  of  the  universe,  but  in  the  end  it  will  not  satisfy  our 
;csthetic  judgment,  our  idea  of  harmony  and  beauty,  like  the 

342 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "  Telephone  Exchange  "      343 

few  facts  which  the  scientist  may  venture  to  tell  us  in  the  same 
field.  The  one  will  agree  with  all  our  experiences  past  and  present, 
the  other  is  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  contradict  our  observation,  be- 
cause it  propounds  a  dogma,  where  we  are  as  yet  far  from  knowing 
the  whole  truth.  Our  aesthetic  judgment  demands  harmony  be- 
tween the  representation  and  the  represented,  and  in  this  sense 
science  is  often  more  artistic  than  modern  art." 1 

In  a  foot-note  Professor  Pearson  tells  us  that  it  is  perhaps  impos- 
sible satisfactorily  to  define  the  metaphysician,  but  that  the  meaning 
he  attaches  to  the  term  will  become  clearer  later  in  his  book.  The 
above  extract,  taken  alone,  seems  to  make  the  accusation  against 
him  a  general  shiftlessness  of  mind,  proceeding  from  a  poetic  in- 
difference to  scientific  method.  The  author  regards  him  as  a  dan- 
gerous member  of  the  community,  because  it  is  not  recognized 
that  he  is  merely  a  poet,  and  he  is  apt  to  be  taken  seriously.  He 
is  a  "  Portuguese  of  the  Intellect,"  who  endeavors  to  establish  a 
right  to  the  foreshore  of  our  present  ignorance,  and  may  hinder 
the  settlement  in  due  time  of  vast  and  yet  unknown  continents  of 
thought.  This  science  should  prevent.2  But  as  we  read  on  we 
discover  that  the  charge  against  this  dark  character  is  a  much 
more  specific  one.  The  real  head  and  front  of  his  offending  is  not 
so  much  that  he  recklessly  anticipates  the  cautious  generalizations 
of  science,  as  that  he  lays  claim  to  a  realm  beyond  the  sphere  of 
science  altogether. 

From  the  material  provided  by  the  senses,  either  directly  or  in 
the  form  of  stored  sense-impressions,  science  draws  conceptions. 
These  are  products  of  the  reflective  faculty,  and  they  exist  in  the 
imagination.  It  is  legitimate  to  form  conceptions  of  things  not 
directly  verifiable  by  the  senses,  but  so  long  as  they  are  not  thus 
verifiable,  we  are  not  justified  in  asserting  that  they  have  objective 
reality.  Atoms  and  molecules  are  such  conceptions.  In  a  sense 
they  are  supersensuous,  for  no  man  has  become  directly  conscious 
of  them  as  sense-impressions,  and  perhaps  no  man  ever  will ;  but 
this  means  only  that  they  are  mental  conceptions  which  assist  us  in 
classifying  phenomena,  i.e.  sense-impressions.  Science  has,  hence, 
to  do  only  with  sense-impressions  and  with  ideal  constructs  which 
are  useful  in  helping  us  to  arrange  the  same.  Only  what  is  directly 
given  as  sense-impression  is  actual.  Thus  the  supersensuous  of 
science  is  but  a  construct  in  the  imagination ;  it  is  made  up  of 

1  il  The  Grammar  of  Science,"  2d  ed.     London,  1900,  pp.  1C,  17.          2  p.  25. 


344  Mind  and  Matter 

remembered  sense-impressions,  and  it  has  no  being  in  an  extra 
mental  world.  "  On  the  other  hand,  the  metaphysician  asserts  an 
existence  for  the  supersensuous  which  is  unconditioned  by  the 
perceptive  or  reflective  faculties  in  man.  His  supersensuous  is  at 
once  incapable  of  being  a  sense-impression,  and  yet  has  a  real 
existence  apart  from  the  imagination  of  men.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  such  an  existence  involves  an  unproven  and  undemon- 
strable  dogma."  * 

Since  the  metaphysician  holds  to  the  supersensuous  in  this 
sense  of  the  word,  his  doctrine  is  "pseudo-science."2  He  fills  the 
"beyond  "of  sense-impression  with  "phantasms."3  It  is  as  an 
"  unconscious  metaphysician  "  that  Professor  Tate,  the  author  of 
"  The  Properties  of  Matter,"  makes  of  matter  a  something  beyond 
the  sphere  of  perception.4  As  a  something  in  the  "beyond"  of 
sense-impression,  matter  is  a  metaphysical  entity  meaningless  for 
science.5  The  statements  of  physicists  and  common-sense  philos- 
ophers with  regard  to  the  nature  of  matter  "  are  one  and  all  meta- 
physical—  that  is,  they  attempt  to  describe  something  beyond 
sense-impression,  beyond  perception,  and  appear,  therefore,  at  best 
as  dogmas,  at  worst  as  inconsistencies.  If  we  confine  ourselves  to 
the  field  of  logical  inference,  we  see  in  the  phenominal  universe 
not  matter  in  motion,  but  sense-impressions  and  changes  of  sense- 
impressions,  coexistence  and  sequence,  correlation  and  routine."6 
We  must  carefully  distinguish  "  conceptual  matter  from  any  meta- 
physical ideas  of  matter  as  the  substratum  of  sense-impression." 7 
Minds  which  cannot  wholly  repress  their  metaphysical  tendencies 
"must  project  their  conceptions  into  realities  beyond  perception."8 
Both  physicist  and  biologist  are  equally  under  obligations  to  with- 
draw "from  the  metaphysical  limbo  beyond  sense-impression."9 
To  recognize  that  the  contents  of  the  mind  ultimately  take  their 
origin  in  sense-impressions  removes  metaphysics  "from  the  field 
of  knowledge."  10  The  phenomenal  world  should  be  distinguished 
from  "  the  unreal  products  of  metaphysical  thought."  n 

The  metaphysician  is,  thus,  a  man  who  refuses  to  confine  his 
world  within  the  limits  of  sense-impressions  and  mental  constructs 
of  such.  He  attempts  to  pass  beyond  the  confines,  not  merely  of 
actual,  but  even  of  possible,  human  knowledge.  Professor  Pearson 

1  pp.  95,  96.  *  p.  248.  7  p.  261.  1°  p.  505. 

2  p.  108.  5  p.  251.  8  p.  269.  "  p.  506. 
8  p.  117.                      6  p.  260.                      9  p.  337. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "Telephone  Exchange"     345 

reprimands  him  for  this,  and  he  endeavors  to  make  clear  just  where 
we  must  place  the  limits  of  the  knowable. 

He  tells  us  that  a  message  is  carried  by  a  sensory  nerve  to 
the  brain.  At  the  brain  what  we  term  the  sense-impression  is 
formed,  and  probably  some  physical  change  takes  place  which 
remains  with  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  persistence  in  the  case  of 
those  stored  sense-impressions  which  we  term  memories.  "Every- 
thing up  to  the  receipt  of  the  sense-impression  by  the  brain  is  what 
we  are  accustomed  to  term  physical  or  mechanical ;  it  is  a  legiti- 
mate inference  to  suppose  that  what  from  the  psychical  aspect  we 
term  memory  has  also  a  physical  side,  that  the  brain  takes  for  every 
memory  a  permanent  physical  impress,  whether  by  change  in  the 
molecular  constitution  or  in  the  elementary  motions  of  the  brain 
substance,  and  that  such  physical  impress  is  the  source  of  our 
stored  sense-impression.  These  physical  impresses  play  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  manner  in  which  future  sense-impressions  of  a  like 
character  are  received.  If  these  immediate  sense-impressions  be  of 
sufficient  strength,  or  amplitude  as  we  might  perhaps  venture  to 
say,  they  will  call  into  some  sort  of  activity  a  number  of  physical 
impresses  due  to  past  sense-impressions  allied,  or,  to  use  a  more 
suggestive  word,  attuned  to  the  immediate  sense-impression.  The 
immediate  sense-impression  is  conditioned  by  the  physical  impresses 
of  the  past,  and  the  general  result  is  that  complex  of  present  and 
stored  sense-impressions  which  we  have  termed  a  '  construct.'  "  1 

Now  a  message  which  has  been  conducted  to  the  brain  along  a 
sensory  nerve  may  be  reflected  directly  as  an  outgoing  message 
along  a  motor  nerve.  In  this  case  a  sense-impression  can  be 
received  without  our  recognizing  it,  without  our  being  conscious. 
Again,  the  sense-impression  received  may  arouse  stored  sense- 
impressions.  In  this  case  we  are  conscious,  we  think:  "Thus 
what  we  term  consciousness  is  largely,  if  not  wholly,  due  to  the 
stock  of  stored  impresses,  and  to  the  manner  in  which  these  con- 
dition the  messages  given  to  the  motor  nerves  when  a  sensory 
nerve  has  conveyed  a  message  to  the  brain.  The  measure  of  con- 
sciousness will  thus  largely  depend  on  (1)  the  extent  and  variety 
of  past  sense-impressions,  and  (2)  the  degree  to  which  the  brain 
can  permanently  preserve  the  impress  of  these  sense-impressions, 
or  what  might  be  termed  the  complexity  and  plasticity  of  the 
brain."2 

1  pp.  42,  43.  3  p.  44. 


346  Mind  and  Matter 

So  far  Professor  Pearson  does  not  appear  to  have  said  anything 
very  much  out  of  harmony  with  the  usual  parallelistic  scheme. 
There  are  such  things  as  human  bodies.  They  are  acted  upon  by 
other  things.  When  the  resulting  message  is  conveyed  to  the 
brain  along  a  nerve  there  arises  a  mental  something  called  a  sense- 
impression.  Remembered  sense-impressions  have  their  parallels  in 
cerebral  activities,  as  well  as  new  sense-impressions.  All  mental 
constructs  are  composed  of  sense-impressions  and  the  revivals  of 
such.  The  language  used  seems  here  and  there  a  trifle  careless, 
as,  for  instance,  when  it  is  said  that  the  brain  receives  the  sense- 
impression,  or  that  the  physical  impress  in  the  brain  is  the  source 
of  stored  sense-impressions.  The  distinction  between  physical 
and  mental  is  by  no  means  so  well  and  clearly  drawn  as  it  is  by 
Clifford.  Nevertheless,  it  is  drawn  fairly  well ;  we  have  here 
contrasted  the  "psychical  aspect"  and  the  "physical  side,"  the 
"  elementary  motions  of  the  brain  substance "  and  the  "  sense- 
impressions." 

To  make  more  clear  the  view  of  brain  activity  which  he  em- 
braces, Professor  Pearson  compares  the  brain  to  the  central  office 
of  a  telephone  exchange  from  which  wires  radiate  to  various 
senders  and  receivers  of  messages.  To  this  figure  he  frequently 
recurs,1  and  the  position  of  the  mind  is  regarded  as  analogous  to 
that  of  the  clerk  shut  up  in  such  an  exchange  and  incapable  of 
getting  nearer  to  his  customers  than  his  end  of  the  telephone 
wires.  What  can  such  a  clerk  know  of  the  world  beyond  his  little 
office  ?  In  the  necessary  limitations  of  his  knowledge  we  have  a 
true  image  of  the  limitations  of  all  our  knowledge.  The  passage 
in  which  this  doctrine  is  best  brought  out  reads  as  follows :  — 

"  We  are  accustomed  to  talk  of  the  '  external  world,'  of  the 
'reality'  outside  us.  We  speak  of  individual  objects  having  an 
existence  independent  of  our  own.  The  store  of  past  sense- 
impressions,  our  thoughts  and  memories,  although  most  probably 
they  have  beside  their  psychical  element  a  close  correspondence 
with  some  physical  change  or  impress  in  the  brain,  are  yet  spoken 
of  as  inside  ourselves.  On  the  other  hand,  although  if  a  sensory 
nerve  be  divided  anywhere  short  of  the  brain  we  lose  the  corre- 
sponding class  of  sense-impression,  we  yet  speak  of  many  sense- 
impressions,  such  as  form  and  texture,  as  existing  outside  ourselves. 
How  close  then  can  we  actually  get  to  this  supposed  world  outside 
1  pp.  44-46,  60-63,  108,  153,  240,  241. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "  Telephone  Exchange  "     347 

ourselves  ?  Just  as  near  but  no  nearer  than  the  brain  terminals  of 
the  sensory  nerves.  We  are  like  the  clerk  in  the  central  telephone 
exchange  who  cannot  get  nearer  to  his  customers  than  his  end  of 
the  telephone  wires.  We  are  indeed  worse  off  than  the  clerk,  for 
to  carry  out  the  analogy  properly  we  must  suppose  him  never  to 
have  been  outside  the  telephone  exchange,  never  to  have  seen  a  customer 
or  any  one  like  a  customer  —  in  short,  never,  except  through  the  tele- 
phone wire,  to  have  come  in  contact  with  the  outside  universe.  Of 
that  '  real '  universe  outside  himself  he  would  be  able  to  form  no 
direct  impression ;  the  real  universe  for  him  would  be  the  aggre- 
gate of  his  constructs  from  the  messages  which  were  caused  by  the 
telephone  wires  in  his  office.  About  those  messages  and  the  ideas 
raised  in  his  mind  by  them  he  might  reason  and  draw  his  infer- 
ences ;  and  his  conclusions  would  be  correct  —  for  what?  For  the 
world  of  telephonic  messages,  for  the  type  of  messages  which  go 
through  the  telephone.  Something  definite  and  valuable  he  might 
know  with  regard  to  the  spheres  of  action  and  of  thought  of  his 
telephonic  subscribers,  but  outside  those  spheres  he  could  have  no 
experience.  Pent  up  in  his  office  he  could  never  have  seen  or 
touched  even  a  telephonic  subscriber  in  himself.  Very  much  in 
the  position  of  such  a  telephone  clerk  is  the  conscious  ego  of  each 
one  of  us  seated  at  the  brain  terminals  of  the  sensory  nerves.  Not 
a  step  nearer  than  those  terminals  can  the  ego  get  to  the  '  outer 
world,'  and  what  in  and  for  themselves  are  the  subscribers  to  its 
nerve  exchange  it  has  no  means  of  ascertaining.  Messages  in  the 
form  of  sense-impressions  come  flowing  in  from  that  'outside 
world,'  and  these  we  analyze,  classify,  store  up,  and  reason  about. 
But  of  the  nature  of  '  things-in-themselves,'  of  what  may  exist  at 
the  other  end  of  our  system  of  telephone  wires,  we  know  nothing 
at  all. 

"  But  the  reader,  perhaps,  remarks  :  '  I  not  only  see  an  object, 
but  I  can  touch  it.  I  can  trace  the  nerve  from  the  tip  of  my  ringer 
to  the  brain.  I  am  not  like  the  telephone  clerk,  I  can  follow  my 
network  of  wires  to  their  terminals  and  find  what  is  at  the  other 
end  of  them.'  Can  you,  reader  ?  Think  for  a  moment  whether 
your  ego  has  for  one  moment  got  away  from  his  brain-exchange. 
The  sense-impression  that  you  call  touch  was  just  as  much  as  sight 
felt  only  at  the  brain  end  of  a  sensory  nerve.  What  has  told  you 
also  of  the  nerve  from  the  tip  of  your  finger  to  your  brain  ?  Why, 
sense-impressions  also,  messages  conveyed  along  optic  or  tactile 


348  Mind  and  Matter 

sensory  nerves.  In  truth,  all  you  have  been  doing  is  to  employ 
one  subscriber  to  your  telephone  exchange  to  tell  you  about  the 
wire  that  goes  to  a  second,  but  you  are  just  as  far  as  ever  from 
tracing  out  for  yourself  the  telephone  wires  to  the  individual  sub- 
scriber and  ascertaining  what  his  nature  is  in  and  for  himself.  The 
immediate  sense-impression  is  just  as  far  removed  from  what  you 
term  the  '  outside  world '  as  the  store  of  impresses.  If  our  telephone 
clerk  had  recorded  by  aid  of  a  phonograph  certain  of  the  messages 
from  the  outside  world  on  past  occasions,  then  if  any  telephonic 
message  on  its  receipt  set  several  phonographs  repeating  past 
messages,  we  have  an  image  analogous  to  what  goes  on  in  the 
brain.  Both  telephone  and  phonograph  are  equally  removed  from 
what  the  clerk  might  call  the  '  real  outside  world,'  but  they  enable 
him  through  their  sounds  to  construct  a  universe ;  he  projects 
those  sounds,  which  are  really  inside  his  office,  outside  his  office, 
and  speaks  of  them  as  the  external  universe.  This  outside  world 
is  constructed  by  him  from  the  contents  of  the  inside  sounds,  which 
differ  as  widely  from  things-in-themselves  as  language,  the  symbol, 
must  always  differ  from  the  thing  it  symbolizes.  For  our  telephone 
clerk  sounds  would  be  the  real  world,  and  yet  we  can  see  how  con- 
ditioned and  limited  it  would  be  by  the  range  of  his  particular 
telephone  subscribers  and  by  the  contents  of  their  messages. 

"  So  it  is  with  our  brain ;  the  sounds  from  telephone  and 
phonograph  correspond  to  immediate  and  stored  sense-impres- 
sions. These  sense-impressions  we  project  as  it  were  outwards 
and  term  the  real  world  outside  ourselves.  But  the  things-in- 
themselves  which  the  sense-impressions  symbolize,  the  '  reality,' 
as  the  metaphysicians  wish  to  call  it,  at  the  other  end  of  the 
nerve,  remains  unknown  and  is  unknowable.  Reality  of  the  ex- 
ternal world  lies  for  science  and  for  us  in  combinations  of  form 
and  color  and  touch — sense-impressions  as  widely  divergent  from 
the  thing  '  at  the  other  end  of  the  nerve  '  as  the  sound  of  the 
telephone  from  the  subscriber  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire.  We 
are  cribbed  and  confined  in  this  world  of  sense-impressions  like  the 
exchange  clerk  in  his  world  of  sounds,  and  not  a  step  beyond  can 
we  get.  As  his  world  is  conditioned  and  limited  by  his  particular 
network  of  wires,  so  ours  is  conditioned  by  our  nervous  system,  by 
our  organs  of  sense.  Their  peculiarities  determine  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  outside  world  which  we  construct.  It  is  the  simi- 
larity in  the  organs  of  sense  and  in  the  perceptive  faculty  of  all 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "  Telephone  Exchange  "     349 

normal  human  beings  which  makes  the  outside  world  the  same,  or 
practically  the  same,  for  them  all.  To  return  to  the  old  analogy, 
it  is  as  if  two  telephone  exchanges  had  very  nearly  identical 
groups  of  subscribers.  In  this  case  a  wire  between  the  two 
exchanges  would  soon  convince  the  imprisoned  clerks  that  they 
had  something  in  common  and  peculiar  to  themselves.  That  con- 
viction corresponds  in  our  comparison  to  the  recognition  of  other 
consciousness."  1 

The  statements  made  in  this  extract  may  be  accepted  as  fairly 
typical  of  those  made  throughout  the  book  from  which  it  is  taken. 
What  can  we  learn  from  them  touching  the  necessary  limitations 
of  human  knowledge  ?  The  ego  is  likened  to  a  clerk  who  has 
never  been  outside  of  his  telephone  exchange.  Of  the  "  real " 
universe  outside  itself  it  can  form  no  direct  impression  —  the  real 
universe  must  be  for  it  the  aggregate  of  its  constructs  from  the 
messages  which  have  been  brought  to  it  along  the  nerves.  It  is 
true  that  we  are  apt  to  "  speak  of  many  sense-impressions,  such  as 
form  and  texture,  as  existing  outside  ourselves."  But  this  is  error. 
Sense-impressions  can  exist  only  in  the  brain-exchange.  When  we 
suppose  ourselves  to  be  tracing  the  course  of  a  nerve  from  finger- 
tip to  brain,  we  forget  that  we  are  dealing  with  sense-impressions. 
The  ego  cannot  for  a  moment  get  away  from  its  brain-exchange, 
and  all  that  it  feels,  it  feels  there  and  nowhere  else.  The  clerk 
perceives  nothing  but  sounds,  and  out  of  them  he  constructs  a  uni- 
verse. These  sounds  "are  really  inside  his  office,"  but  he  projects 
them  outside  his  office  and  speaks  of  them  as  the  external  universe. 
So  it  is  with  the  ego ;  its  immediate  and  stored  sense-impressions 
correspond  with  sounds  received  and  sounds  which  have  been 
received  before  ;  these  sense-impressions  the  ego  projects  as  it  were 
outwards,  and  terms  them  the  real  world  outside  itself.  As  the 
clerk  is  confined  to  this  world  of  sounds,  so  the  ego  is  "  cribbed 
and  confined  "  in  the  world  of  sense-impressions,  and  cannot  get  a 
step  beyond  it. 

The  limits  to  knowledge  here  laid  down  appear  at  first  sight  to 
be  sufficiently  definite  and  unmistakable.  In  many  other  passages 
they  are  as  emphatically  affirmed.  "  We  are  now  in  a  position  to 
see  what  is  meant  by  'reality'  and  the  'external  world.'  Any 
group  of  immediate  sense-impressions  we  project  outside  ourselves 
and  hold  to  be  part  of  the  external  world.  As  such  we  call  it  a 

!pp.  60-63. 


350  Mind  and  Matter 

phenomenon,  and  in  practical  life  term  it  real."  1  "  It  is  idle  to 
postulate  shadowy  unknovvables  behind  that  real  world  of  sense- 
impression  in  which  we  live.  So  far  as  they  affect  us  and  our  con- 
duct they  are  sense-impressions  ;  what  they  may  be  beyond  is 
fantasy,  not  fact ;  if  indeed  it  be  wise  to  assume  a  beyond,  to  postu- 
late that  the  surface  of  sense-impressions  which  shuts  us  in,  must 
of  necessity  shut  something  beyond  out."2  "  Human  thought  has 
its  ultimate  source  in  sense-impressions,  beyond  which  it  cannot 
reach." 3  "  The  mind  is  absolutely  confined  within  its  nerve- 
exchange  ;  beyond  the  walls  of  sense-impression  it  can  logically 
infer  nothing."4 

The  complete  isolation  of  the  ego  from  everything  beyond  its 
immediate  and  stored  sense-expressions  —  in  other  words,  from 
everything  beyond  itself  —  which  it  seems  to  be  the  purpose  of 
these  statements  to  maintain,  could  have  been  made  clearer  by 
Professor  Pearson  in  his  picture  of  the  telephone  clerk,  had  he 
brought  out  more  distinctly  the  fact  that,  just  as  the  clerk  has 
never  seen  a  customer,  or  anything  like  a  customer,  so  he  has  never 
seen  even  a  telephone  exchange  or  anything  like  a  telephone 
exchange. 

The  clerk  is,  by  hypothesis,  absolutely  confined  to  his  messages, 
and  his  world  is  wholly  composed  of  messages  heard  and  remem- 
bered. A  telephone  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  a  message  or 
with  any  construct  of  such.  Any  wire  that  can  mean  anything  at 
all  to  such  a  clerk,  all  of  whose  knowledge  is  confined  to  sounds, 
must  be  a  complex  of  sounds.  That  the  clerk  has  a  body,  and  that 
this  body  is  placed  in  a  telephone  exchange,  he  cannot  possibly 
know  as  an  ordinary  clerk  is  supposed  to  know  these  things.  He 
does  not  perceive  the  telephones  about  his  bod}r ;  he  perceives 
nothing  but  sounds.  May  we  say  that  his  body,  the  telephones, 
the  wires,  and  the  subscribers,  are  beyond  his  world? 

First  we  must  ask  what  the  word  "  beyond  "  can  mean  to  him.  If 
a  man  has  absolutely  no  conception  of  anything  but  sounds,  then 
the  word,  to  have  any  meaning  at  all  to  him,  must  be  interpreted 
in  terms  of  sound.  Beyond  the  sounds  he  knows,  are,  perhaps, 
other  sounds.  What  else  can  the  word  "beyond"  mean?  If  all 
significance  be  denied  it,  the  word  says  nothing  at  all.  If  it  is  to 
be  given  a  content,  however  indefinite,  it  must  be  a  sound-content. 

So  it  is  with  the  ego  seated  in  the  brain-exchange.  That  it  is 
1  pp.  63-64.  2  p-  73.  s  p.  74.  i  p.  108. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "Telephone  Exchange"     351 

seated  there,  and  even  that  there  is  a  brain-exchange,  it  cannot 
possibly  know,  if  the  brain-exchange  is  not  a  mere  construct  of 
sense-impressions,  and  is  not  itself  in  the  ego.  We  speak  loosely 
when  we  say  that  the  ego  can  get  no  nearer  to  the  external  world 
"than  the  brain-terminals  of  the  sensory  nerves."  Have  we  not 
seen  that  the  very  nerve  that  we  trace  from  finger-tip  to  brain  is 
a  group  of  sense-impressions,  and  wholly  in  the  ego  ?  It  is  foolish 
to  speak  of  sense-impressions  as  either  near  to  or  far  from  the 
external  world.  The  external  world  is  nothing  but  a  group  of 
sense-impressions.  The  brain  is  in  the  ego,  not  the  ego  in  the 
brain.  The  brain  telephone  exchange  is,  thus,  a  construct  in  the 
mind,  and  to  say  that  the  whole  mind  is  in  the  brain -exchange,  and 
cannot  get  beyond  it,  seems  to  be  mere  nonsense. 

Professor  Pearson  might,  I  repeat,  have  made  all  this  clearer  in 
his  figure  of  the  clerk.  It  would,  to  be  sure,  have  resulted  in  the 
instant  dismissal  of  the  clerk,  as  a  logical  monstrosity.  However, 
a  number  of  things  that  he  says  later  in  his  book  bring  out  the 
truth  very  clearly,  and  we  see  that  the  clerk  really  must  be  dis- 
missed. 

"We  find  that  space  is  something  peculiar  to  the  individual  per- 
ceptive faculty ;  it  is  our  mode  of  perceiving  sense-impressions. 
The  self,  seated  "  metaphorically,  not  physically,"  in  the  telephonic 
brain-exchange,  classes  together  some  groups  of  the  messages 
which  come  to  it,  "and  speaks  of  them  as  objects  existing  in 
space."  Space  and  the  things  in  space,  are,  thus,  mental  con- 
structs.1 Time  is  also  a  mode  of  perception  ;  "  time  is  the  percep- 
ception  of  sequence  in  stored  sense-impressions  —  the  relationship 
of  past  perceptions  with  the  immediate  perception.  Thus  time 
involves  in  its  essence  memory  and  thought  —  in  other  words,  con- 
sciousness." Space  has  been  termed  an  external,  and  time  an 
internal,  mode  of  perception  ;  but  the  distinction  is  not  a  good  one, 
for  both  are  "dependent  on  the  association  of  immediate  and 
stored  sense-impressions."2  And  motion,  which  is  the  combina- 
tion of  space  with  time,  is  a  mode  of  perception  too.  It  is  not 
even  a  fact  of  perception,  for  "a  sense-impression  in  itself  cannot  be 
said  to  move  ;  it  is  there  at  the  brain-terminal  or  not  there  ;  "  3  "  of 
the  universe  as  contained  in  messages  received  at  the  brain  tele- 
phonic exchange,  or  of  groups  of  sense-impressions,  we  cannot 
assert  motion  —  objects  appear,  disappear,  and  reappear ;  sense- 
i  pp.  152-157.  2  pp.  181-185.  3  p.  249. 


352  Mind  and  Matter 

impressions  alter  and  modify  their  grouping.  Change  is  the  right 
word  to  apply  to  them  rather  than  motion.  It  is  in  the  field  of  con- 
ception solely  that  we  can  properly  talk  of  the  motion  of  bodies ;  it 
is  there,  and  there  only,  that  geometrical  forms  change  their  position 
in  absolute  time — that  is,  move."1  The  mind  absolutely  rebels 
against  the  notion  of  anything  moving  but  these  conceptual  crea- 
tions, which  are  unrealizable  in  the  field  of  perception.2  Motion  is 
"  a  pure  conception,  which  may  describe  perceptual  changes,  but 
cannot  be  projected  into  the  phenomenal  world  without  involving 
us  in  inexplicable  difficulties."3 

Thus  space,  time,  and  motion  are  forms  of  perception.  It  is 
only  mental  constructs  that  can  exist  in  space  and  time  and  can 
move.  It  follows  that  mechanism  which  implies  the  geometrical 
motions  of  geometrical  forms  is  a  product  of  conception,  is  a  men- 
tal construct  and  nothing  more.4  It  is  "  no  reality  of  the  phenome- 
nal world."5  We  have  seen  above  that  only  a  metaphysician 
could  be  so  lost  to  all  sense  of  propriety  as  to  make  it  a  reality 
of  a  world  beyond  phenomena. 

We  must,  then,  hold  firmly  to  the  truth  that  the  "  messages  " 
that  are  "conveyed  along  optic  or  tactile  sensory  nerves,"  that 
"  come  flowing  in  "  from  the  outside  world,  exist  only  in  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  ego.  Indeed,  the  whole  telephone  exchange  — 
office,  wires,  and  everything  else  —  can  exist  nowhere  else.  Is 
it  not  conceived  as  a  something  spread  out  in  space  and  existing 
in  time  ?  Is  it  not  a  mechanism  ?  Where  can  a  mechanism  exist 
unless  in  consciousness  ?  If,  then,  the  ego  dreams  of  itself  as  in 
a  telephone  exchange,  it  must  realize,  on  reflection,  that  it  is 
wholly  inconceivable  that  it  should  really  be  in  a  telephone  ex- 
change beyond  consciousness,  and  receiving  messages  from  such 
a  "  beyond."  What  becomes  of  a  telephone  exchange  if  we  deny 
extension  in  space  to  the  office  and  to  the  wires,  and  motion  to  the 
messages  ?  How  can  we  conceive  of  the  clerk  at  one  end  of  the 
wire  and  the  subscriber  at  the  other  when  the  wire  has  no  extension 
whatever?  Nothing  lies  "between"  clerk  and  subscriber  (assum- 
ing both  to  exist),  for,  since  space,  time,  and  motion  can  exist  only 
in  the  imagination  of  clerk  or  subscriber,  there  can  be  no  "be- 
tween," in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the  word,  unless  it  exist  in 
the  imagination  of  the  one  or  the  imagination  of  the  other.  Both 
ends  of  the  only  conceivable  "  wire  "  lie  in  the  same  imagination, 

i  pp.  241-242.  2  p.  241.  3  p.  272.  «  p.  240.  5  p.  325. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "Telephone  Exchange"     353 

and  the  message  which  is  conveyed  along  it,  is  conveyed  "in 
conception."  The  telephone  exchange,  then,  if  there  be  such  a 
thing,  exists  solely  within  the  ego;  it  is  a  construct  of  sense- 
impressions.  As  a  device  for  making  clear  the  relations  between 
egos,  or  between  an  ego  and  anything  else  beyond  it,  it  is  a  mani- 
fest absurdity. 

It  seems,  then,  as  clear  as  anything  can  be,  that  the  telephone 
exchange  is  a  tree  upon  which  we  mount,  and  which  we  then 
proceed  to  pull  up  after  us.  First,  it  is  outside  of  the  ego  ;  the 
ego  is  in  the  tree,  and  is  no  nearer  to  the  ground  than  is  the  branch 
upon  which  it  is  perched.  Next,  the  tree  is  in  the  ego,  and  no 
tree  can  be  conceived  that  is  not  in  an  ego.  The  first  view  of 
the  tree  may  be  represented  thus  :  — 

CI RI 0 

E 

Here  0  is  some  object,  such  as  a  candlestick ;  RI  is  my  retinal 
image  of  the  object ;  CI  is  my  cerebral  image,  as  Clifford  called  it, 
the  brain-disturbance  resulting  from  the  message  sent  from  RI '; 
E  is  the  ego  seated  at  the  brain-exchange.  Of  0,  E  can  know 
nothing  whatever  except  as  a  message  is  propagated  to  CI.  It 
is  "there,"  at  CI,  and  gets  nothing  whatever  but  sense-impressions 
which  appear  in  it  when  there  are  "elementary  motions  of  the 
brain-substance." 

According  to  the  second  view,  0,  RI,  CI,  the  distances  which 
separate  them,  and  the  motions  in  which  they  are  concerned,  are 
all  constructs  of  sense-impressions ;  they  are  really  inside  E.  What, 
then,  can  it  mean,  if  I  say  that  E  can  get  no  nearer  to  0  than 
CI?  that  it  is  "cribbed  and  confined"  in  CI?  that  it  cannot  know 
0  as  it  is  in  itself  ?  Is  0  anything  but  a  group  of  sense-impres- 
sions projected,  "  as  it  were,  outwards  "  ? 

The  two  views  are  palpably  inconsistent  with  each  other,  but 
it  would  be  hasty  to  assume  that  they  cannot  be  held  simultane- 
ously, for  there  is  abundant  evidence  that  Professor  Pearson  does 
hold  them  simultaneously.  When  he  resolutely  pulls  up  his  tree 
he  is  lost  —  his  scheme  of  things  disappears.  To  keep  clerk  and 
subscribers  in  any  intelligible  relations  with  each  other,  he  must 
let  it  down  again  at  once,  and  this  he  proceeds  to  do.  He  is  evi- 
dently trying  to  keep  it  at  once  up  and  down  —  in  short,  he  finds 
it  impossible  to  "  wholly  repress  his  metaphysical  tendencies,"  and 
2  A 


354  Mind  and  Matter 

must  project  his  conceptions  into  "  realities  beyond  perception," 
while  denying  that  they  may  be  so  projected.  So  abundant  is 
the  material  illustrative  of  this  fact,  that  it  is  puzzling  to  know 
what  passages  to  select. 

The  lengthy  extract  which  I  have  given  above  fairly  bristles 
with  statements  that  imply  that  we  are  to  conceive  of  the  ego  as 
in  the  telephone  exchange,  and  not  of  the  telephone  exchange  as 
in  the  ego.  We  are  told  that  our  thoughts  and  memories  most 
probably  have  "  beside  their  psychical  element  a  close  correspond- 
ence with  some  physical  change  or  impress  in  the  brain " ;  that 
we  can  get  no  nearer  to  the  supposed  outside  world  "  than  the 
brain-terminals  of  the  sensory  nerves  " ;  that  "  we  are  like  the  clerk 
in  the  central  telephone  exchange  who  cannot  get  nearer  to  his 
customers  than  his  end  of  the  telephone  wires  "  ;  that  the  conscious 
ego  of  each  one  of  us  is  "seated  at  the  brain-terminals  of  the 
sensory  nerves  "  ;  that  it  has  no  means  of  ascertaining  "  what  in 
and  for  themselves  are  the  subscribers  to  its  nerve  exchange  ";  that 
"  messages  in  the  form  of  sense-impressions  come  flowing  in  from 
that  '  outside  world,' "  but  "  of  what  may  exist  at  the  other  end 
of  our  system  of  telephone  wires,  we  know  nothing  at  all " ;  that 
the  sounds  which  the  telephone  clerk  projects  outside  his  office 
"are  really  inside  his  office";  that  the  things-in-themselves  which 
the  sense-impressions  symbolize,  the  things  "at  the  other  end 
of  the  nerve,"  remain  unknown  and  are  unknowable ;  that  sense- 
impressions  are  "  as  widely  divergent  from  the  thing  '  at  the  other 
end  of  the  nerve '  as  the  sound  of  the  telephone  from  the  sub- 
scriber at  the  other  end  of  the  wire  " ;  that  as  the  clerk's  world 
"  is  conditioned  and  limited  by  his  particular  network  of  wires, 
so  ours  is  conditioned  by  our  nervous  system,  by  our  organs  of 
sense  "  ;  that  "  it  is  the  similarity  in  the  organs  of  sense  and  in 
the  perceptive  faculty  of  all  normal  human  beings  which  makes 
the  outside  world  the  same,  or  practically  the  same,  for  them  all." 

These  statements  mean,  if  they  mean  anything,  that  the  nerves 
and  brain  are  to  be  distinguished  carefully  from  the  sum  total  of 
the  immediate  and  stored  sense-impressions  which  arise  when  cer- 
tain physical  motions  have  taken  place  in  nerves  and  brain.  It 
seems  mere  incoherence  to  repeat  them,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
understand  that  the  nerves  and  brain  under  discussion  are  only 
mental  constructs  in  the  brain-exchange,  i.e.  are  at  the  brain-termi- 
nals of  these  same  nerves.  What  becomes  of  our  telephone  ex- 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "Telephone  Exchange"      355 

change  if  we  conceive  the  office  with  all  its  apparatus,  and  the 
whole  network  of  wires  connected  therewith,  to  be  gathered  up 
and  drawn  into  the  imprisoned  clerk  ?  Is  there  any  conceivable 
sense  in  which  we  can  regard  him  as  imprisoned,  "  cribbed  and 
confined,"  when  he  has  swallowed  his  prison  ?  How  can  he  be  at 
one  end  of  a  wire  when  the  whole  wire  is  within  him  ? 

If  he  is  to  remain  at  a  brain-exchange  at  all,  it  must  be  at  the 
exchange  of  a  brain  that  is  not  in  him  as  his  construct.  The 
statements  quoted  above  affirm  him  to  be  in  such  an  exchange. 
Similar  statements  abound  elsewhere  in  Professor  Pearson's  book. 
He  supposes  himself,  for  example,  to  tarn  quickly  in  his  chair  and 
to  knock  his  knee  against  the  edge  of  the  table.  He  tells  us  that 
a  message  is  carried  by  a  sensory  nerve  from  the  affected  part  to 
the  brain.  "  At  the  brain  what  we  term  the  sense-impression  is 
formed."1 

Now,  are  we  to  suppose  the  chair,  table,  knee,  nerve,  and  brain 
here  referred  to,  to  be  merely  in  Professor  Pearson's  ego  ?  At  what 
brain,  then,  does  the  sense-impression  come  into  being?  In  what 
"  exchange  "  is  the  whole  complex  of  immediate  and  stored  sense- 
impressions  ?  "  Self,  seated  (metaphorically,  not  physically)  in 
the  telephonic  brain-exchange,  receives  an  infinite  variety  of  mes- 
sages, which  we  can  only  assume  to  reach  self  in  precisely  the 
same  manner.  Yet  self  classes  some  groups  of  these  messages 
together,  and  speaks  of  them  as  objects  existing  in  space,  while  to 
other  groups  it  has  denied  in  the  past,  or  still  denies,  this  spatial 
existence."2  Are  we  to  regard  the  telephonic  brain-exchange  in 
which  the  self  is  seated,  are  we  to  regard  the  sources  from  which 
it  received  an  infinite  variety  of  messages,  as  nothing  more  than 
groups  of  messages  in  the  self,  merely  "  spoken  of  "  as  existing  in 
space?  Surely,  we  are  not  to  suppose  that  Professor  Pearson 
penned  the  above  sentence  with  the  intention  of  making  it  clear 
that  the  self  is  not  in  the  telephonic  brain-exchange,  but  that  the 
telephonic  brain-exchange  is  a  construct  in  the  self  and  is  merely 
"  spoken  of  "  as  existing  in  space  !  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  mul- 
tiply citations,  for  the  significance  of  those  given  is  quite  unmis- 
takable. There  is,  however,  one  oft-recurring  phrase  which  must 
not  be  allowed  to  pass  without  examination. 

We  have  seen  that,  near  the  close  of  the  lengthy  extract  which 
likens  the  ego  to  the  telephone  clerk,  we  are  told  that  "  it  is  the 
1  p.  42.  2  p.  153. 


356  Mind  and  Matter 

similarity  in  the  organs  of  sense  and  in  the  perceptive  faculty  of 
all  normal  human  beings  which  makes  the  outside  world  the  same, 
or  practically  the  same,  for  them  all."  What  are  we  to  under- 
stand by  this  "  perceptive  faculty  "  ?  What  is  it  ?  Is  it  a  construct 
of  sense-impressions,  or  is  it  something  beyond  sense-impres- 
sions ?  The  role  which  it  is  supposed  to  play  is  certainly  an 
important  one  ;  it  has  laid  upon  its  shoulders  the  duty  of  construct- 
ing the  universe  :  "  The  brain  in  the  individual  man  is  probably 
considerably  influenced  by  heredity,  by  health,  by  exercise,  and  by 
other  factors,  but  speaking  generally  the  physical  instruments  of 
thought  in  two  normal  human  beings  are  machines  of  the  same 
type,  varying  indeed  in  efficiency,  but  not  in  kind  or  function. 
For  the  same  two  normal  human  beings  the  organs  of  sense  are 
also  machines  of  the  same  type  and  thus  within  limits  only 
capable  of  conve}ring  the  same  sense-impressions  to  the  brain. 
Herein  consists  the  similarity  of  the  universe  for  all  normal  human 
beings.  The  same  type  of  physical  organ  receives  the  same  sense- 
impressions  and  forms  the  same  '  constructs.'  Two  normal  per- 
ceptive faculties  construct  practically  the  same  universe."  1 

From  this  passage  it  is  clear  that  the  perceptive  faculty  is  but 
another  name  for  the  brain  at  whose  "  exchange  "  the  ego  is  supposed 
to  have  its  seat.  The  same  seems  to  be  indicated  by  the  words  which 
precede  the  quotation  given  just  before  :  "  As  his  (the  clerk's)  world 
is  conditioned  and  limited  by  his  particular  network  of  wires,  so 
ours  is  conditioned  by  our  nervous  system,  by  our  organs  of  sense. 
Their  peculiarities  determine  what  is  the  nature  of  the  outside 
world  which  we  construct." 

The  perceptive  faculty  is,  then,  the  brain  ;  and  by  the  expres- 
sion "  the  organs  of  sense  and  the  perceptive  faculty  "  we  can 
mean  only  the  nervous  system  as  a  whole.  Of  course,  when  one 
means  the  brain,  it  is  better  to  say  the  brain,  than  to  say  the  per- 
ceptive faculty.  The  latter  is  an  ambiguous  form  of  expression 
drawn  from  a  psychology  now  pretty  generally  abandoned,  and 
supposed  to  be  most  affected  by  those  who  are  most  given  over  to 
metaphysical  speculation.  The  brain  is  a  physical  thing;  does  it 
not  sound  odd  to  say  that  the  perceptive  faculty  is  a  physical 
thing  ?  The  sense-impression  is  formed  at  the  brain  ;  does  it  sound 
well  to  say  that  it  is  formed  at  the  perceptive  faculty  ?  The 
expressions  are  scarcely  interchangeable,  and  it  seems  unwise  to 

i  p.  47. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "Telephone  Exchange"     357 

abandon  the  one  which  is  the  most  direct  and  unambiguous  for  the 
other,  which  is  more  vague,  and  which  comes  to  us  burdened 
with  the  associations  which  it  has  gathered  from  a  mediaeval 
metaphysics. 

It  is  clear  that  in  the  above  passage  Professor  Pearson  means 
by  the  perceptive  faculty  the  brain.  It  is  not  equally  clear  that 
he  means  this  every  time  that  he  uses  the  expression ;  but  where- 
ever  his  meaning  is  at  all  distinctly  indicated  it  seems  reasonable 
to  assume  that  this  is  his  meaning.  He  writes :  "  How  far  does 
this  routine  of  sense-impressions  depend  upon  the  perceptive 
faculty :  How  far  does  it  lie  outside  that  faculty  in  the  unknown 
and  unknowable  beyond  of  sensation?  The  question  is  one  to 
which  at  present  no  definite  answer  can  be  given,  and  perhaps  one 
to  which  no  answer  can  ever  be  found.  If,  with  the  materialists, 
we  make  matter  the  thing-in-itself,  we  throw  the  routine  back  on 
something  behind  sense-impressions,  and,  therefore,  unknowable. 
Precisely  the  same  happens  if,  with  Berkeley,  we  attribute  the 
routine  to  the  immediate  action  of  a  deity.  Materialist  and 
idealist  are  here  at  one  in  casting  the  routine  of  sense-impression 
into  the  unknowable.  But  the  business  of  the  scientist  is  to  know, 
and  therefore  he  will  not  lightly  assent  to  throwing  anything  into 
the  unknowable  so  long  as  known  '  causes '  have  not  been  shown 
to  be  insufficient.  The  scientific  tendency  would  therefore  be  to 
consider  the  routine  of  our  perceptions  as  due  in  some  way  to  the 
structure  of  our  perceptive  faculty  before  we  appeal  to  any  super- 
sensuous  aid." 1 

This  scientific  tendency  Professor  Pearson  holds  to  be  reason- 
able on  the  ground  that  we  have  evidence  that  the  perceptive  fac- 
ulty is  a  selective  machine.  We  have,  he  says,  only  to  walk  abroad 
with  a  dog  in  order  to  discover  this.  We  find  that  "  the  percep- 
tive faculty  in  the  dog  selects  certain  sense-impressions,  and  these 
form  for  it  reality  ;  that  of  the  man  selects  another  and  probably 
far  more  complex  range,  which  form  in  turn  reality  for  him. 
Both  may  be  again  compared  to  automatic  sweetmeat  boxes, 
which  only  work  on  the  insertion  of  coins  of  definite  and  different 
value."  2  But,  "  there  is  another  point  which  undoubtedly  deserves 
notice.  Our  sense-impressions  are  indeed  complex  in  their  group- 
ing, but  they  come  to  us  by  very  few  and  comparatively  simple 
channels ;  namely,  through  the  organs  of  sense.  The  simplicity  of 
i  pp.  101,  102.  2  p.  103. 


358  Mind  and  Matter 

the  scientific  law  may  therefore  be  partly  conditioned  by  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  modes  in  which  sense-impressions  are  received."  1 

From  these  passages  it  seems  reasonably  clear  that  the  percep- 
tive faculty  is  the  brain.  It  is  contrasted  with  the  organs  of 
sense,  and  it  is  suggested  that  the  routine  of  our  perceptions  may 
be  due  in  part  to  one  and  in  part  to  the  other.  The  illustration  of 
the  sorting-machine  is  taken  up  again  immediately  afterwards  : 
"  In  some  such  way  as  this,  perhaps,  we  may  look  upon  that  great 
sorting-machine  —  the  human  perceptive  faculty.  Sensations  of 
all  kinds  and  magnitudes  may  flow  into  it,  some  to  be  rejected  at 
once,  others  to  be  sorted  all  orderly,  and  arranged  in  place  and 
time.  It  may  be  the  perceptive  faculty  itself,  which,  without  our 
being  directly  conscious  of  it,  contributes  the  ordered  sequence  in 
time  and  space  to  our  sense-impressions.  The  routine  of  percep- 
tion may  be  due  to  the  recipient,  and  not  characteristic  of  the 
material."  This  seems  to  make  the  ordering  of  sense-impressions 
a  less  mysterious  thing  —  the  whole  of  ordered  nature  is  seen  to  be 
the  product  of  one  mind,  the  mind  "  associated  with  the  machinery 
of  nervous  organization."2 

We  find  here,  of  course,  certain  loosenesses  of  expression,  but 
some  oscillations  must  be  expected  of  one  who  has  perched  himself 
upon  such  a  limb  as  that  upon  which  the  champion  of  the  tele- 
phone exchange  elects  to  sit.  Why  say  that  ordered  nature  is  the 
product  of  one  mind,  when  we  have  made  the  brain  —  the  human 
perceptive  faculty  —  the  source  of  the  arrangement  of  sense-im- 
pressions ?  "  Our  only  experience  of  thought  is  associated  with  the 
brain  of  man  ;  no  inference  can  possibly  be  legitimate  which  carries 
thought  any  farther  than  nervous  systems  akin  to  him."3  Thus 
when  man  and  dog  walk  abroad  together,  the  difference  in  their 
worlds  must  be  due  to  differences  in  senses  and  in  brains.  The 
sorting-machine,  the  last  strainer  that  lets  in  or  keeps  out  sense- 
impressions,  must  be  cerebral.  To  identify  this  sorting-machine 
with  the  sense-impressions  sorted  by  it  would  be  pure  incoherence  ; 
to  make  of  it  a  "  metaphysical  "  entity,  a  phantom  not  to  be  identi- 
fied with  brain,  nerves,  or  sense-impressions,  would  not  be  consist- 
ent with  Professor  Pearson's  philosophy.  We  must  assume  that 
by  perceptive  faculty  he  means  brain,  and  no  other  brain  than  the 
one  at  whose  "  exchange  "  the  ego  finds  itself,  and  of  whose  "  sort- 
ings" it  constructs  its  world. 

!p.  106.  2  p.  107.  3p.  74. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "  Telephone  Exchange  "     359 

It  seems  as  clear  as  anything  can  be  that  in  all  these  passages 
Professor  Pearson  has  let  his  tree  down  again  —  it  is  now  not  in 
him,  but  he  is  in  it.  The  clerk  really  is  in.  the  telephone  exchange  ; 
there  are  wires  about  him,  and  the  exchange  and  the  wires,  as  well 
as  the  customers,  are  "  beyond  "  him ;  they  must  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  the  world  of  sounds  which  he  constructs.  They 
constitute  the  sorting-machine  ;  he  is  the  material  sorted  out.  He 
comes  into  being  in  the  exchange,  and  he  does  not  come  into  being 
until  the  messages  have  completed  their  journey  along  the  wires 
from  the  subscriber.  It  is  palpably  absurd  to  speak  of  this  clerk 
as  coming  into  being  in  a  telephone  exchange  which  he  has  con- 
structed in  his  own  imagination. 

Thus,  in  spite  of  his  disapproval  of  metaphysicians,  we  find 
that  Professor  Pearson  is  a  metaphysician  in  precisely  the  sense  of 
the  word  adopted  by  himself.  He  accepts  a  "  beyond" — the  sorting- 
machine  with  its  nerves  and  sense-organs  —  and  makes  this  "  be- 
yond "  responsible  for  the  nature  of  the  world  of  sense-impressions 
and  mental  constructs.  He  certainly  goes  nearer  to  the  supposed 
world  outside  ourselves  "  than  the  brain  terminals  of  the  sensory 
nerves,"  for  he  distinguishes  between  brain,  nerves,  and  sense- 
organs,  and  inclines  to  divide  the  credit  for  the  ordering  of  sense- 
impressions  between  brain  and  sense-organs. 

The  limitations  to  our  knowledge  of  the  "  beyond  "  are,  as  he 
lays  them  down,  exceedingly  odd.  We  seem  to  know  a  good  deal 
about  the  brain,  the  nerves,  and  the  sense-organs,  but  the  thing  "  at 
the  other  end  of  the  nerve  remains  unknown  and  is  unknowable." 
Why  I  should  know  the  brain  at  whose  exchange  I  am  imprisoned, 
why  I  should  know  the  nerves  which  run  from  that  brain,  and  even 
the  sense-organs  in  which  they  terminate,  and  then  and  only  then 
come  to  a  wall  of  ignorance,  appears  to  be  a  hopeless  mystery. 
If  I  can  know  a  nerve  "  beyond  "  sense-impressions  to  be  a  nerve, 
why  cannot  I  know  a  table  "  beyond  "  sense-impressions  to  be  a 
table  ? 

A  knowledge  of  a  world  beyond  sense-impressions  is,  therefore, 
asserted  by  Professor  Pearson.  It  is  also  denied.  Sometimes  the 
denial  is  so  decided  that  we  feel  a  little  surprised  to  find  him 
willing  to  come  forward  again  and  reassert  it :  "  Turn  the  problem 
round  and  ponder  over  it  as  we  may,  beyond  the  sense-impression, 
beyond  the  brain  terminals  of  the  sensory  nerves,  we  cannot  get. 
Of  what  is  beyond  them,  of  '  things-in-themselves,'  as  the  meta- 


360  Mind  and  Matter 

physicians  term  them,  we  can  know  but  one  characteristic,  and 
this  we  can  only  describe  as  a  capacity  for  producing  sense-impres- 
sions, for  sending  messages  along  the  sensory  nerves  to  the  brain. 
This  is  the  sole  scientific  statement  which  can  be  made  with  regard 
to  what  lies  beyond  sense-impressions.  But  even  in  this  state- 
ment we  must  be  careful  to  analyze  our  meaning.  The  methods 
of  classification  and  inference,  which  hold  for  sense-impressions 
and  for  the  conceptions  based  upon  them,  cannot  be  projected  out- 
side our  minds,  away  from  the  sphere  in  which  we  know  them  to 
hold,  into  a  sphere  which  we  have  recognized  as  unknown  and 
unknowable.  The  laws,  if  we  can  speak  of  laws,  of  this  sphere 
must  be  as  unknown  as  its  contents,  and  therefore  to  talk  of  its 
contents  as  producing  sense-impressions  is  an  unwarranted  infer- 
ence, for  we  are  asserting  cause  and  effect  —  a  law  of  phenomena 
or  sense-impressions  —  to  hold  in  a  region  beyond  our  experience. 
We  know  ourselves,  and  we  know  around  us  an  impenetrable  wall 
of  sense-impressions.  There  is  no  necessity,  nay,  there  is  want  of 
logic,  in  the  statement  that  behind  sense-impressions  there  are 
'  things-in-themselves '  producing  sense-impressions.  About  this 
supersensuous  sphere  we  may  philosophize  and  dogmatize  unprofit- 
ably,  but  we  can  never  know  usefully.  It  is  indeed  an  unjustifi- 
able extension  of  the  term  knowledge  to  apply  it  to  something 
which  cannot  be  part  of  the  mind's  contents."  1 

Here  Professor  Pearson  has  gone  almost  as  far  as  he  could 
go  in  a  denial  of  our  knowledge  of  a  beyond.  Nevertheless,  he 
has  not  gone  quite  as  far  as  consistency  ought  to  compel  him 
to  go.  He  takes  back,  it  is  true,  "  the  sole  scientific  statement " 
that  we  are  able  to  make  touching  what  lies  beyond  sense-im- 
pression ;  but  we  are  impressed  by  the  fact  that  it  seems  worth 
while  to  him,  both  here  and  in  many  other  passages  in  his  book, 
to  make  the  statement.  This  appears  to  indicate  that  the  state- 
ment is  not  wholly  meaningless  to  him  after  all.  If  it  be  quite 
without  significance,  it  cannot  be  a  scientific  statement,  and 
should  not  be  called  such. 

In  the  second  place,  a  careful  examination  of  the  passages 
quoted  reveals  that  what  is  really  excluded  from  knowledge  is 
not  the  whole  "beyond."  There  are,  of  course,  sweeping  denials 
that  we  can  get  beyond  sense-impression  at  all ;  but  these  are 
neutralized  by  an  argument  that  evidently  makes  the  only  thing 

i  pp.  67,  68. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "Telephone  Exchange"     361 

wholly  excluded  from  knowledge  the  thing  "at  the  end  of   the 
nerve."     It  is  denied   that   this   thing  is  able  to  send   messages 
"along  the  sensory  nerves  to  the  brain."     The  existence  of  the1 
nerves  and  the  brain  does  not  appear  to  be  called  in  question. 

No  man  would  be  tempted  to  commit  himself  to  the  "sole- 
scientific  statement,"  even  as  a  preliminary  step  to  its  demoli- 
tion, if  he  clearly  recognized  that  the  brain  and  nerves  in  question 
are  not  external  to  the  ego  at  all,  but  are  mere  constructs  in  its- 
imagination.  That  Professor  Pearson  conceives  of  them  as  "be- 
yond "  the  ego  is  plain  from  his  statement  that  the  ego  cannot  get1 
beyond  the  brain-terminals  of  these  same  nerves.  Thus  we  find 
the  impenetrable  wall  of  sense-impressions  by  no  means  im- 
penetrable so  far  as  brain  and  nerves  are  concerned.  We  must 
be  able  to  know  at  least  a  part  of  the  "  beyond,"  if  we  are  able  to1 
know  that  the  ego  is  at  that  particular  spot  in  the  beyond  —  is  in 
a  telephone  exchange.  But  how  shall  we  reconcile  this  with  the 
unequivocal  statement  that  it  is  "an  unjustifiable  extension  of- 
the  term  knowledge  to  apply  it  to  something  which  cannot  be 
part  of  the  mind's  contents  "  ? 

No  reconciliation  is  possible.  The  fact  is  that  Professor 
Pearson  from  time  to  time  puts  his  telephone  exchange  into 
the  clerk,  but  finds  it  impossible  to  keep  it  there.  He  finds 
it  impossible  to  keep  it  there  for  a  very  good  reason.  When 
the  exchange  is  put  within  the  clerk,  the  external  world,' 
the  orderly  scheme  of  things,  without  which  science  cannot  get 
on,  the  scheme  in  which  egos  have  their  place,  is  wholly  lost. 
The  psychologist  busies  himself  with  the  contents  of  individual- 
egos,  but  even  his  science  compels  him  to  assume  an  external 
world  that  is  not  to  be  identified  with  the  contents  of  any  one 
of  these  egos.  The  student  of  physical  science  does  not  concern 
himself  with  the  contents  of  egos  at  all,  when  he  keeps  to  his 
proper  field. 

That  Professor  Pearson  cannot  get  on  without  an  external 
world  —  not  a  projection  of  mental  constructs,  but  a  real  ex- 
ternal world  —  is  evident  in  every  chapter  of  his  book.  Mark 
the  following  words:  "Does  science  leave  no  mystery?  On  the 
contrary,  it  proclaims  mystery  where  others  profess  knowledge: 
There  is  mystery  enough  in  the  universe  of  sensation  and  in  its 
capacity  for  containing  those  little  corners  of  consciousness  which 
project  their  own  products,  of  order  and  law  and  reason,  into 


362  Mind  and  Matter 

an  unknown  and  unknowable  world."  l  The  universe  of  sensa- 
tion contains  these  little  corners  of  consciousness  —  they,  the 
egos,  are  in  it,  in  some  sense  of  the  word.  What  becomes  of  this 
scheme  of  things  when  we  declare  that  there  is  no  universe  of 
sensation  except  in  an  ego? 

Let  us  suppose  the  man  and  the  dog  of  the  illustration  given 
above  to  take  a  walk  abroad.  There  is  now  no  "  abroad  "  unless 
it  be  in  the  mind  of  the  man  or  in  the  mind  of  the  dog.  In  which 
of  these  minds  shall  we  conceive  them  to  be  walking?  Their 
brains  are  functioning  as  sorting-machines.  They  are  constructs 
in  the  mind  of  the  man  or  in  the  mind  of  the  dog.  How  shall 
we  set  about  accounting  for  the  difference  in  the  sense-impres- 
sions of  man  and  of  dog?  Shall  we  say  that  the  one  construct 
in  the  mind  of  the  man  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  sorting-machine 
which  "  lets  in  "  itself,  the  brain  of  the  dog,  and  everything  else 
that  is  in  the  universe  in  the  mind  of  the  man  ;  while  the  other  con- 
struct in  the  mind  of  the  man  "  lets  in  "  everything  that  is  in  the 
mind  of  the  dog?  Shall  we  say  that  each  walks  as  a  construct 
in  his  own  imagination  —  walks  only  "in  conception" — and  "lets 
in "  himself  and  everything  else  in  his  world  ?  What  can  we 
mean  by  the  phrase  "lets  in"  when  we  speak  thus  ?  The  illus- 
tration of  the  man  and  the  dog  becomes  nonsense  unless  we  are 
willing  to  stand  by  the  doctrine  of  the  telephone  exchange  ;  and 
if  we  stand  by  that  doctrine  we  must  not  place  the  telephone  ex- 
change in  the  clerk. 

Those  who  have  some  familiarity  with  the  history  of  reflective 
thought  can  readily  see  that  Professor  Pearson  is  a  metaphysician. 
He  does  not  confine  himself  to  the  field  of  physical  science,  but  he 
tries  to  give  some  intelligible  account  of  the  mind  and  of  its  rela- 
tion to  an  external  world.  They  can  see,  moreover,  that  he  takes 
his  place  among  metaphysicians  of  a  sufficiently  numerous  class  — 
those  who  cut  the  mind  off  wholly  from  an  external  world,  and 
then  go  on  speaking  as  though  the  barrier  which  they  have  set  up 
could  be  transcended.  Those  who  do  this  are,  of  course,  inconsist- 
ent, but  sometimes  the  inconsistency  is  more  or  less  veiled.  With 
Professor  Pearson  it  is  naive,  frank,  and  reiterated.  He  who  runs 
may  see  that  the  tree  is  at  once  up  and  down  —  up  and  down  on 
the  same  page,  up  and  down  in  the  same  sentence.  Perhaps  this 
may  be  accounted  for  in  part  by  the  fact  that  Professor  Pearson  is 

1  p.  112. 


The  Metaphysics  of  the  "  Telephone  Exchange  "     363 

a  metaphysician  par  intSrim,  as  Aramis  was  a  mousquetaire,  and 
regards  the  profession  as  unworthy  of  him. 

But  there  is  another  reason  for  the  palpability  of  Professor 
Pearson's  failure,  and  one  which  more  nearly  concerns  us.  It  is 
that  he  is  a  student  of  physical  science  —  one  whose  first  duty  it  is 
to  give  an  intelligible  account  of  that  external  world  to  which 
one-half  of  his  statements  flatly  deny  an  existence.  What  he  is 
compelled  to  say  about  this  world  when  he  is  on  his  own  ground 
—  and  I  for  my  part  have  here  followed  him  with  pleasure  and 
profit  —  cannot  but  be  in  conflict  with  such  statements. 

In  his  attempt  to  get  on  without  an  external  world,  and  in  his 
failure  to  do  so,  Professor  Pearson  does  not  stand  alone.  Many 
others  have  trodden  the  same  path.  Were  his  case  precisely  like 
that  of  all  other  subjective  idealists  it  would  not  be  worth  while  to 
examine  it  at  such  length.  What  makes  it  especially  interesting 
is,  that  it  shows  very  clearly  that  the  man  of  science,  above  all 
others,  must  be  convicted  of  inconsistency  if  he  tries  to  substitute 
for  a  real  material  world  to  which  minds  may  be  "  parallel,"  a 
world  of  mental  constructs  which  has  no  being  except  in  the  indi- 
vidual mind;  if  he  insists  on  denying  to  the  "universe  of  sensa- 
tion," which  is  allowed  to  have  a  capacity  for  containing  "little 
corners  of  consciousness,"  any  existence  whatever  except  in  one 
or  more  of  those  "little  corners."  Professor  Pearson  has  been  so 
clear  and  so  explicit  that  he  has  illustrated  this  as  clearly  as  any 
one  could  wish  to  have  it  illustrated;  and  in  doing  this  he  has 
been,  I  think,  of  no  little  service. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  THE  WORLD  AND  THE  MIND 

FROM  what  has  been  said  in  Chapter  XVII  it  appears  to  be 
evident  that  we  cannot  conceive  of  the  relation  of  the  mind  to  the 
external  world  after  the  fashion  of  the  interactionist.  With  the 
best  of  intentions  to  be  something  better,  he  does  not  succeed  in 
being  anything  better  than  a  materialist  in  disguise.  One  cannot 
attain  to  canonization  merely  by  assuming  a  false  name  and 
appearing  in  a  borrowed  halo.  The  advocatus  diaboli  (here  the 
analyst)  easily  makes  short  work  of  such  pretensions.  And  it 
appears  to  be  equally  clear  from  the  chapters  which  follow  that  it 
is  impossible  to  accept  quite  literally  the  doctrine  of  parallelism 
with  its  absolute  and  final  separation  of  mind  and  world. 

We  have  seen  that  the  doctrine  of  parallelism  is  not  assumed 
gratuitously.  Men  do  not  become  parallelists  for  no  reason  at  all. 
They  embrace  the  doctrine  because  they  think  they  find  an  their 
experience  facts  which  justify  them  in  doing  so.  As  we  peruse 
Clifford's  pages  we  find  him  adducing  various  instances  of  con- 
comitance which  impel  him  to  conceive  of  the  mind  and  the  world 
according  to  a  certain  scheme.  There  are  physical  facts  and  there 
are  mental  facts,  and  the  facts  of  the  two  orders  are  found  to  be 
related  to  each  other  in  a  given  way.  The  whole  argument 
assumes  that  there  are  physical  facts,  and  that  their  concomitance 
with  mental  facts  is  matter  of  observation.  In  other  words,  the 
argument  assumes  that  there  is,  and  that  there  is  perceived  to  be, 
a  material  world  which  can  be  related  to  and  contrasted  with  a 
mental  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  find,  when  the  argument  comes  to  an 
end,  the  mental  facts  as  a  whole  quite  cut  off  from  the  material 
facts.  We  discover  that  only  mental  facts  can  be  given  in  con- 
sciousness, and  that  there  lias  been  no  experience  of  physical  facts 
at  all.  What  we  assumed  to  be  physical  facts  are  seen  to  be,  after 
all,  only  mental  facts.  We  are,  thus,  shut  up  to  a  parallelism  of 

364 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     365 

one  terra,  an  absurdity.  This  is  the  suicide  of  parallelism,  which 
has  stabbed  itself  with  the  knife  of  consistency.  The  same  fate 
hangs  over  the  head  of  every  doctrine  which  rests  in  the  psycho- 
logical standpoint  with  its  inherent  inconsistency.  It  cannot 
afford  to  grow  clear  and  to  draw  conclusions  with  logical  rigor. 
To  see  itself  as  it  is,  is  to  sound  its  own  death-knell  and  to  draw 
the  knife  from  the  sheath. 

But  why  hold  to  parallelism  at  all,  under  the  circumstances? 
Why  not  abandon  physical  facts  to  their  fate,  take  in  hand  the 
single  parallel  which  is  left,  and  construct  from  that  a  whole 
world  ? 

We  have  seen  the  attempt  made,  in  somewhat  erratic  fashion, 
in  the  last  chapter.  When  it  was  found  difficult  to  conceive  of 
the  telephone  exchange  as  beyond  the  clerk,  it  was  pulled  into  the 
clerk,  and  what  was  the  result?  Not  a  world,  an  orderly  system 
of  things,  but  chaos.  Our  common  experience,  which  furnishes  us 
the  basis  upon  which  we  must  begin  all  our  efforts  at  metaphysical 
analysis  and  reconstruction,  seems  to  lay  before  us  an  external 
material  world  and  a  world  of  minds  related  to  this  in  certain 
more  or  less  definite  ways.  Our  consciousness  of  all  of  these  is 
undoubtedly  somewhat  vague,  but  at  least  we  have  something 
resembling  a  system.  The  illustration  of  the  telephone  exchange, 
when  it  first  makes  its  appearance  upon  the  scene,  strikes  us  as 
pleasing  and  as  not  without  significance,  because  it  appears  to  be 
not  out  of  harmony  with  the  system  of  things  as  it  seems  to  be 
revealed  to  us.  There  are  minds,  there  are  material  things,  the 
minds  are  somehow  brought  into  relation  to  each  other  through 
the  material  things.  Explanation  of  individual  occurrences  seems 
possible  by  means  of  reference  to  the  system  as  a  whole.  But 
once  draw  the  telephone  exchange  into  the  clerk,  and  what  is  the 
result?  We  have  not  even  the  elements  of  a  world;  all  our  usual 
ways  of  accounting  for  things  seem  to  be  swept  off  of  the  stage  at 
one  swoop. 

Said  Clifford :  "  Suppose  we  put  a  certain  man  in  the  middle  of 
the  hall,  and  we  all  looked  at  him.  We  should  all  have  percep- 
tions of  his  brain ;  those  would  be  facts  in  our  consciousness,  but 
they  would  be  all  different  facts."1  As  we  have  seen,2  Clifford 
himself  ends  by  drawing  the  telephone  exchange  into  the  clerk. 
Let  us  try  it  here.  The  "certain  man  in  the  middle  of  the  hall  " 
i  See  Chapter  XIX.  2  Chapter  XXI. 


366  Mind  and  Matter 

is  a  man  in  Clifford's  mind  and  stands  in  a  hall  in  Clifford's  mind. 
Can  we  all  look  at  him?  The  words  seem  to  have  become 
nonsense.  Men  in  Clifford's  mind  can  look  at  this  other  man  in 
Clifford's  mind.  But  all  these  men  are  in  Clifford's  mind.  What 
reason  has  he,  then,  to  believe  that  there  are  also  other  men  stand- 
ing in  other  halls  and  looked  at  by  other  men  ? 

And  if  there  be,  what  conceivable  relation  can  there  be  between 
all  these  sets  of  beings  in  different  minds  ?  We  appear  to  have, 
not  a  world,  but  worlds,  and  worlds  absolutely  disconnected  with 
each  other.  Surely  we  have  travelled  far  from  the  common 
experience  of  the  world  and  of  minds,  which  we  set  out  to  make 
more  clear  to  ourselves,  when  we  have  substituted  for  its  seeming 
order  and  unity,  this  chaotic  multiplicity  of  disconnected  images. 
The  distinction  between  mind  and  world  is  not  made  clear  —  it  is 
simply  thrown  away,  and  with  it  the  only  bond  which  seems  to 
connect  in  any  way  minds  with  each  other.  Subjective  Idealism 
is  not  a  system.  It  is  a  witches'  Sabbath  ;  and  it  is  little  wonder 
that  pious  souls  like  Berkeley  feel  compelled  to  call  upon  God  to 
bring  order  out  of  chaos  by  becoming  himself  a  bond  of  connection 
between  things  which  seem  so  wholly  a  law  to  themselves. 

If,  then,  we  totally  renounce  the  parallelistic  scheme  and  pass 
over  to  subjective  idealism,  we  simply  give  up  the  problem  which 
we  set  out  to  solve.  We  do  not  make  less  vague  the  distinction 
between  mind  and  world ;  we  deny  that  there  is  a  world,  and  we 
sweep  away  all  conceivable  relations  between  different  minds.  The 
last  state  of  a  man  who  philosophizes  in  this  wise  is  incomparably 
less  desirable  than  the  first.  In  the  first  he  grasped  vaguely  the 
distinction  between  the  mind  and  the  external  world,  and  that 
between  one  mind  and  another.  Now  he  has  pulled  down  the 
whole  structure  which  loomed  up  before  him,  and  sits  disconsolate 
upon  its  ruins.  The  best  that  we  can  wish  him  is  such  a  degree 
of  blindness  that  he  may  not  recognize  as  a  ruin  the  ruin  that  he 
has  made. 

But  if  we  really  wish  to  make  clear  to  ourselves  these  distinc- 
tions vaguely  grasped  by  the  plain  man,  there  seems  to  be  open  to 
us  only  one  method  of  procedure.  That  one  is  the  restatement  of 
the  parallelistic  doctrine  in  some  such  form  as  to  obviate  the  diffi- 
culties into  which  that  doctrine  as  ordinarily  stated  runs  out.  Such 
a  restatement  I  shall  now  attempt.  I  warn  the  reader  that  there 
is  no  part  of  this  volume  in  which  there  is  more  danger  of  my 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     367 

deceiving  both  him  and  myself,  and  I  invite  him  to  examine  most 
critically  every  step  of  my  argument.  At  the  same  time,  it  is 
right  that  I  should  point  out  to  him  that  he  is  not  justified  in 
adopting  uncritically  that  most  questionable  of  old  maxims,  falsus 
in  uno,  falsus  in  omnibus,  and  in  rejecting  in  a  body  all  my  analy- 
ses, in  case  he  finds  me  not  wholly  successful  in  this  one,  and 
decides  that  he  must  endeavor  to  throw  light  upon  the  distinction 
between  the  mind  and  the  world  in  a  fresh  analysis  undertaken  by 
himself.  He  who  would  strive  to  make  clear  what  is  but  dimly 
grasped  in  common  thought,  may  very  well  succeed  in  part  of  his 
task,  even  if  he  be  not  successful  in  accomplishing  the  task  as  a 
whole. 

The  distinction  between  his  mind  and  an  external  world  to 
which  it  is  related  is,  of  course,  perfectly  well  recognized  by  the 
plain  man.  Here  I  sit  in  my  study  and  before  my  desk.  I  per- 
ceive the  walls,  the  books,  the  desk,  and  distinguish  between  such 
things  as  these  and  my  own  mind.  I  do  not  appear  to  be  con- 
cerned with  an  uncertain  inference,  a  knowledge  at  one  or  more  re- 
moves. I  seem  to  be  conscious  of  what  is  external  and  conscious 
also  of  my  mind  or  self  as  a  something  contrasted  with  this. 

Moreover,  I  recognize  not  merely  the  fact  that  my  mind  and 
the  external  world  exist,  but  also  the  fact  that  my  mind  is  related 
to  a  definite  portion  of  the  external  world  as  it  is  not  related  to 
other  portions.  I  have  observed  that  I  see  with  my  eyes,  hear 
with  my  ears,  touch  with  my  hands,  smell  with  my  nose,  taste  with 
my  mouth,  am  pained  when  my  body  is  cut,  etc.  These  things 
are  matters  of  observation :  can  I  not  close  my  eyes,  stop  my  ears, 
take  my  hands  off  of  my  desk,  and  repeat  such  operations  as  often 
as  I  wish  to  do  so?  Even  a  baby  soon  learns  that  it  cannot  with 
impunity  bite  its  finger  as  it  is  in  the  habit  of  biting  other  things  ; 
and  the  plainest  of  plain  men  recognizes  that  his  mind  is  related  to 
his  body  as  it  is  not  related  to  other  material  objects. 

Thus,  within  the  experience  of  the  plain  man  we  find  a  certain 
plan  or  system.  The  external  world  is  contrasted  with  his  mind, 
and  the  two  are  somewhat  vaguely  recognized  as  related  in  certain 
ways  and  not  in  others.  There  is  much  that  is  indefinite  in  such 
a  recognition  of  the  mind  and  the  world.  A  man  may  be  quite 
unable  to  define  what  he  means  by  the  external  world  and  most 
uncertain  as  to  the  connotation  of  the  word  "  mind,"  and  yet  may  feel 
very  sure  that  he  is  in  some  way  conscious  of  both.  He  may  feel 


368  Mind  and  Matter 

equally  sure  that  the  body  may  in  some  sense  be  regarded  as  the 
instrument  through  which  the  mind  knows  things,  and  yet  hesitate 
to  hazard  even  a  conjecture  as  to  the  nature  of  the  relation  of  body 
and  mind.  Whatever  may  remain  dark  to  him,  he  cannot,  before 
he  falls  into  the  hands  of  the  metaphysician,  doubt  that  the  desk 
at  which  he  sits  is  an  external  thing  and  a  thing  to  be  distinguished 
from  his  own  mind,  nor  can  he  doubt  that  shutting  his  eyes  and 
stopping  his  ears  will  make  changes  in  his  experience  of  a  quite 
unique  description.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  it  does  not  occur  to 
him  to  gather  up  the  whole  of  his  experience  and  put  it  in  his  mind. 
His  mind  or  consciousness  does  not  mean  to  him  the  whole  of  his 
experience.  It  is  a  something  in  his  experience  distinguished  from 
something  else  —  it  is  a  part  or  aspect  of  his  experience.  If  it 
were  not  this,  the  distinction  between  the  mind  and  the  world 
could  not  be  recognized  by  him  at  all.  One  term  is  not  enough 
to  furnish  a  contrast. 

The  distinctions  thus  recognized  by  the  plain  man  science 
develops,  as  we  have  seen  in  earlier  chapters  of  this  volume.  It 
does  not  take  the  material  world  to  be  the  world  of  things  which 
appear  to  be  intuitively  present  when  the  distinction  between  mind 
and  world  is  drawn  in  the  experience  of  the  plain  man.  It  labori- 
ously builds  up  a  mechanical  system  and  relates  individual  minds 
to  this  in  more  or  less  definite  ways,  or,  at  least,  in  ways  which 
may  be  called  more  or  less  definite  when  contrasted  with  the  utter 
indefiniteness  of  common  thought. 

It  should  be  kept  in  mind  that  science  does  not,  in  all  this, 
proceed  arbitrarily.  It  insists  that  it  has  observed  fact  upon  which 
to  rest  at  every  step.  It  tacitly  assumes  that  the  distinction 
between  the  mind  and  the  world  is  a  distinction  within  conscious- 
ness, and  that  the  relations  of  the  two  are  open  to  scientific  investi- 
gation. When  the  psychologist  says  "  my  consciousness,"  he  does 
not  mean  to  include  all  experience,  all  existence,  real  or  imaginary. 
He  is  marking  a  distinction,  and  feels  that  he  has  abundant  reason 
to  know  that  the  things  which  he  is  distinguishing  are  given  in 
experience. 

In  this  he  is  entirely  in  the  right ;  but  he  may,  of  course,  fall 
into  error  when  he  attempts  to  tell  what  it  is  that  he  is  thus  dis- 
tinguishing. The  problem  is  by  no  means  a  simple  one.  In  cer- 
tain of  the  preceding  chapters,1  where  the  external  world  and  the 
1  Chapters  VIII,  XV,  XVI. 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     369 

mind  were  discussed  at  some  length,  such  experiences  as  colors, 
odors,  and  tastes  were  recognized  as  subjective,  were  gathered  up 
and  referred  to  the  mind.  The  objective,  external  world  was 
recognized  to  be  a  complex  of  touch-movement  sensations,  con- 
trasted with  these,  and  charged  with  the  duty  of  bringing  order 
into  our  experience  as  a  whole. 

But  the  reader  will  have  seen  that  it  is  impossible  to  regard 
the  distinction  between  the  mind  and  the  external  world  as  iden- 
tical with  that  between  such  sensations  as  taste  or  smell  and 
sensations  of  touch  and  movement.  He  has  seen  that  I  have  been 
unable  to  give  an  account  of  space  and  time  and  of  the  real  world 
in  space  and  time  without  distinguishing  between  what  is  intui- 
tively present  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  and  that  for 
which  it  stands  as  the  symbol,  between  the  appearance  and  the 
reality  which  it  represents.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  repudiate 
our  former  analyses,  but  it  is  necessary  to  complete  them  by  point- 
ing out  more  explicitly  that  the  very  word  "  sensation  "  carries  with 
it  a  subjective  suggestion  of  which  it  is  desirable  to  get  rid  when 
we  are  concerned,  not  with  the  real  world  as  it  appears  to  this  or 
that  individual,  but  with  the  real  world  which  we  contrast  with 
our  experiences  of  it.1 

This  becomes  more  clear  to  us  when  we  bear  in  mind  that 
psychology,  proceeding  on  the  basis  proper  to  it  as  a  natural 
science,  feels  itself  justified  in  regarding  sensations  of  touch  and 
movement  as  mere  copies  or  representatives  in  mind  of  things  exter- 
nal. To  the  psychologist  as  psychologist  it  would  sound  absurd 
to  say  that  things  are  touch-movement  sensations.  Things  are 
things,  and  sensations  are  sensations  ;  we  may  observe  the  relations 
of  the  two  to  each  other,  but  we  must  keep  the  two  classes  distinct 
if  psychology  is  to  do  its  work  at  all.  If  the  psychologist  be  a 
metaphysician,  he  will,  of  course,  make  an  effort  to  determine  with 
some  accuracy  what  he  means  by  "  things  "  ;  but  it  is  not  his  duty 
as  a  metaphysician  to  rub  out  distinctions  which  he  was,  as  a 
psychologist,  justified  in  drawing.  To  the  metaphysician,  as  well 

1  In  Chapter  VI I  asked  the  reader  to  regard  the  account  of  sensation  and  of  the 
external  world  given  in  that  and  in  certain  chapters  following  as  provisional.  In 
those  chapters  I  spoke  of  the  external  world  as  composed  of  "sensations"  or 
"sensational  elements."  This  chapter  will  show  why  such  a  use  of  speech  is  not 
strictly  correct ;  but  I  hope  it  will  also  show  that  I  have  been  justified  in  using  the 
words  which  I  have  used  for  lack  of  some  better  form  of  expression. 


370  Mind  and  Matter 

as  to  the  psychologist,  sensations  must  remain  sensations,  and 
must  be  distinguishable  from  "things." 

The  science  of  psychology  does  not  proceed  as  it  does  without 
good  reason.  A  study  of  the  body  seems  to  make  it  plain  that 
sensations  of  all  sorts  are  the  result  of  a  message  sent  along  a 
nerve  to  the  brain.  If  the  eye  be  injured  or  the  optic  nerve  sev- 
ered, there  are  no  sensations  of  sight ;  if  the  auditory  nerve  be 
diseased,  it  puts  a  stop  to  the  reception  of  sensations  of  hearing ; 
if  a  tumor  presses  upon  the  spinal  cord,  there  are  no  sensations 
of  touch  when  the  foot  is  brought  into  contact  with  objects,  or  of 
movement  when  it  is  swung.  Psychology  can  discover  no  reason 
for  treating  differently  messages  sent  along  nerves  which  stretch 
from  the  finger-tips  to  the  brain,  and  those  sent  along  nerves 
which  extend  to  the  brain  from  the  eye  or  the  ear.  If  any  sensa- 
tion is  to  be  referred  to  "  the  telephone  exchange,"  surely  every 
sensation  is  to  be  so  referred  —  a  truth  which,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  last  chapter,  may  lead  those  who  imperfectly  comprehend  it 
into  all  sorts  of  confusions. 

The  error  into  which  men  fall  at  this  point  is  a  most  natural 
one.  Sensations  of  touch  and  movement  seem  to  be  the  very  stuff 
of  which  the  real  material  world  is  composed.  Sensations  of  all 
sorts,  including  sensations  of  touch  and  movement,  are  discovered 
to  be  the  result  of  the  stimulation  of  the  peripheral  end  of  a  sensory 
nerve.  The  external  world,  then,  cannot  really  be  external,  but 
must  enjoy  a  merely  fictitious  externality.  It  must  be  an  "  inter- 
nal "  thing  "  projected  outward." 

It  is  odd  that  those  who  reason  thus  do  not  realize  that  "  inner  " 
and  "  outer  "  have  no  meaning,  and  "  projection  "  becomes  mere 
incoherence  when  one  has  resolved  things  into  sensations  and 
rubbed  out  the  distinction  between  mind  and  world.  It  may  mean 
something  to  put  sensations  into  a  telephone  exchange,  and  to  project 
certain  things  in  imagination  beyond  the  telephone  exchange.  But 
it  cannot  mean  anything  whatever  to  put  all  things,  including  the 
telephone  exchange,  into  the  telephone  exchange,  and  then  to  "pro- 
ject "  certain  things  "  out "  along  wires  which  are  not  themselves 
"  out."  The  psychologist  has  better  sense  than  to  make  such 
a  mistake  as  this.  This  is  reserved  for  a  metaphysician.  The 
psychologist  may  not  clearly  comprehend  the  distinction  between 
sensations  and  things,  but  he  does  not  lose  the  distinction. 

He  defines  a  sensation  as  that  which  comes  into  being1  when  a 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     371 

message  conveyed  along  a  sensory  nerve  reaches  certain  parts  of 
the  brain.  An  occurrence  takes  place  in  the  world  of  matter;  a 
message  starts  from  the  periphery  of  the  body  ;  it  reaches  the  brain 
appreciably  later  than  the  moment  at  which  the  occurrence  took 
place.  He  regards  the  sensation  as  arising  when,  and  only  when, 
the  message  reaches  the  brain.  The  sensation,  then,  does  not 
come  into  being  for  some  little  time  after  the  occurrence  has  taken 
place.  It  is  palpably  absurd  to  identify  the  sensation  with  the 
external  occurrence  —  the  one  may  be  past  and  gone  before  the 
other  has  begun  to  exist.  Can  the  man  who  has  the  sensation 
know  anything  of  the  occurrence  except  through  his  sensation? 
Psychology  says  no,  and  at  once  we  seem  to  be  condemned  to  the 
disheartening  inconsistencies  of  the  doctrine  of  representative  per- 
ception, to  the  hopeless  effort  to  prove  that  there  is  a  world  beyond 
sensations  when  we  are  entirely  shut  up  to  sensations. 

But,  as  we  have  seen  all  along,  the  psychologist  does  not  take 
himself  quite  seriously  in  making  such  statements.  He  believes 
that  it  is  quite  possible  to  prove  that  a  sensation  takes  place  after 
the  external  occurrence  that  furnished  its  stimulus  to  the  periphe- 
ral ending  of  the  sensory  nerve.  He  does  not  guess  at  this.  He 
holds  it  to  be  matter  of  observation  ;  and  when  we  inspect  his 
batteries,  wires,  keys,  and  revolving  drums,  we  convince  ourselves 
that  it  is  a  matter  of  scientific  observation,  and  that  his  knowledge 
of  the  relations  of  the  external  occurrence  to  the  sensation  may 
have  some  approach  to  accuracy.  We  see  clearly  that  when  he 
says  that  a  man  is  shut  up  to  his  sensations,  he  really  means  no 
more  than  that  in  a  sense  he  is  shut  up  to  his  sensations ;  and  he 
does  not  mean  to  put  him  into  such  a  state  of  isolation  that  the 
very  word  "sensation"  becomes  meaningless  to  him. 

Our  only  problem,  therefore,  is  to  determine  the  sense  in  which  a 
man  is  shut  up  to  his  sensations,  and  the  sense  in  which  he  is  not. 
In  other  words,  we  are  to  discover  what  is,  at  bottom,  this  psycho- 
logical distinction  between  sensations  and  things,  the  denial  of 
which  leads  to  such  palpable  incoherence. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  common  experience  in  which  the  external 
world  seems  to  be  revealed,  and  contrasted  with  mind,  at  almost 
every  moment.  Here  I  sit  at  my  desk;  I  see  it:  I  lay  my  hand 
on  it.  The  desk  is  a  real  desk  and  known  as  part  of  a  real  me- 
chanical system  of  things.  I  shut  my  eyes,  I  take  my  hand  away. 
Never  for  a  moment,  unless  I  have  been  misled  lr>y  the  speculations 


372  Mind  and  Matter 

of  some  philosopher,  does  it  occur  to  me  to  think  that  the  desk 
has  been  annihilated.  For  the  time  being  the  desk  has  disap- 
peared, it  is  no  longer  perceived. 

The  distinction  is  an  extremely  important  one,  and  marks  the 
fact  that  the  elements  of  experience  may  take  their  place  in  two 
very  different  constructs,  which,  however,  be  it  remarked,  are  by 
no  means  independent  of  each  other.  Of  the  nature  of  the  con- 
struct which  we  call  the  external  world  I  have  treated  at  length  in 
chapters  preceding.  We  have  seen  that  there  is  there  no  distinction 
of  consciousness-elements  as  dim  and  vivid,  as  imaginary  and  sensa- 
tional. All  this  is  abstracted  from  when  we  are  concerned  with 
what  is  material.  Yet  such  distinctions  undoubtedly  occur  within 
our  experience,  and  their  significance  must  not  be  overlooked. 
They  belong  as  a  class  to  what  has  been  called  the  subjective 
order  of  things  as  contrasted  with  the  objective.  What  is  this 
subjective  order? 

In  the  experience  above  referred  to,  even  a  child  can  recognize 
the  significance  of  the  changes  which  take  place  in  my  body. 
Whether  the  eyes  are  open  or  shut,  or  the  hand  is  on  or  off  of  the 
desk,  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world  to  the  subjective  order. 
The  urchin  who  alternately  stops  and  unstops  his  ears  to  make  the 
preacher  sing  an  unearthly  tune,  never  supposes  that  he  is  inter- 
fering with  the  actual  delivery  of  the  sermon.  He  knows  that  he 
is  playing  with  one  of  his  senses,  that  he  is  changing  the  subjective 
order,  not  the  objective.  The  two  may  sometimes  be  confused,  as 
when  a  young  child  shuts  its  own  eyes  to  prevent  other  persons 
from  seeing  it ;  but,  in  general,  the  distinction  is  one  pretty  clearly 
recognized  even  by  the  least  reflective. 

,  And  to  one  who  reflects  a  little  it  becomes  evident  that  the 
whole  of  the  subjective  order  is  intimately  bound  up  with  the 
changes  which  take  place  in  his  body.  Receding  from  a  tree 
makes  it  seem  small  and  blue  ;  we  do  not  think  that  the  tree  has 
changed,  but  we  realize  that  the  impression  made  upon  our  body 
is  not  what  it  was  before,  and  thus  we  account  for  the  change 
in  our  experience.  The  longer  we  hold  a  weight,  the  heavier  it 
grows,  but  we  do  not  think  that  the  weight  has  changed ;  we  say 
that  our  muscles  and  nerves  are  feeling  the  strain.  Every  sub- 
jective change,  if  it  is  to  find  an  explanation  at  all,  must  find  its 
explanation  in  the  objective  material  system  of  things,  upon  the 
shoulders  of  which  is  laid,  as  we  have  seen,  the  duty  of  ordering 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     373 

our  experience  as  a  whole.  There  are  a  multitude  of  subjective 
changes  which  cannot  as  yet  be  so  accounted  for,  but  that  only 
means  that  the  ordering  of  experience  is  incomplete,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  we  are  ignorant. 

The  fact  that  the  subjective  order  is  bound  up  with  the  body 
and  the  changes  which  take  place  in  it  is,  then,  recognized  by  the 
plain  man.  To  him  it  is  one  thing  to  say,  "  The  tree  exists,"  and 
another  to  say,  "  I  see  the  tree  "  ;  it  is  one  thing  to  say,  "  The 
water  is  hot,"  and  another  to  say,  "  I  feel  heat."  He  is  not  thrown 
into  confusion  by  observing  that  the  water  may  feel  hot  to  one 
hand  and  cold  to  another,  for  he  has  learned  to  draw  the  perfectly 
justifiable  distinction  between  qualities  of  things  and  sensations. 
He  recognizes  the  two  orders  to  be  two,  if  not  explicitly  in  all 
cases,  at  least  implicitly,  and  he  can  make  good  use  of  the  dis- 
tinction. And  what  he  does  instinctively,  and  in  a  somewhat 
blundering  waj',  the  psychologist  does  more  thoroughly  and  ac- 
curately. He  makes  it  his  duty  to  investigate  the  subjective 
order,  and  to  determine  more  narrowly  the  relations  between 
phenomena  which,  as  belonging  to  it,  are  recognized  as  mental, 
and  the  bodily  changes  through  which  such  phenomena  are  related 
to  the  world  of  matter. 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  what  has  all  this  discussion  of  the 
subjective  order  and  the  objective  order  to  do  with  extricating 
the  psychologist  from  the  trap  in  which  he  appears  to  have  placed 
himself?  Here  I  sit  before  my  desk  and  look  at  it.  The  psychol- 
ogist tells  me  that  the  desk  is  one  thing,  and  the  sensations  I 
derive  from  it  another.  Of  which  am  I  conscious  ?  What  is  the 
desk  which  I  seem  to  see?  Is  it  external?  Then  what  are  the 
sensations?  I  do  not  seem  to  myself  to  be  conscious  of  my  sensa- 
tions as  a  something  given  in  addition  to  the  desk ;  as  a  copy 
given  side  by  side  with  the  original.  To  admit  the  existence  of 
such  copies  in  consciousness  side  by  side  with  the  original  would 
contradict  some  of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  psychologist. 
Is.  then,  this  desk  sensation,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  is  it 
percept?  Is  it  internal?  Then  how  is  it  possible  for  me  to  know 
that  it  is  in  any  way  related  to  a  desk  truly  external  ?  Plow  can 
I  know,  in  other  words,  that  it  is  sensation  or  percept?  The  dif- 
ficulty seems  to  be  that,  in  the  initial  experience  which  furnishes 
the  ultimate  foundation  for  all  that  I  can  say  about  sensations 
and  things,  but  one  thing  appears  to  present  itself,  i.e.  this  desk, 


374  Mind  and  Matter 

and  this  one  thing  the  psychologist,  following  the  lead  of  the 
plain  man,  asks  me  to  separate  into  two  things,  —  an  original  and 
a  copy,  —  and  to  relegate  them  to  different  worlds. 

If,  however,  we  scrutinize  more  carefully  the  experience  in 
question,  we  shall  find  abundant  justification  for  the  distinctions 
drawn  by  the  psychologist,  and  shall  find,  moreover,  that  the  dis- 
tinction of  the  subjective  and  the  objective  order  has  everything 
to  do  with  the  solution  of  the  problem.  In  the  chapters  which 
treat  of  the  external  world  I  have  pointed  out  at  length  that  a 
group  of  consciousness-elements  must  be  recognized  as  having  its 
place  in  a  certain  orderly  system  before  we  can  regard  it  as  con- 
stituting a  real  thing.  Considered  in  itself  and  abstracted  from 
all  relation  to  other  experiences,  it  is  just  what  it  is,  i.e.  such  and 
such  a  group  of  elements ;  but  it  is  not  a  material  thing,  and  is 
not  a  part  of  the  external  world.  And  the  most  cursory  glance 
at  our  treatises  on  psychology,  or,  for  that  matter,  a  little  reflec- 
tion upon  what  the  word  "  sensation  "  means  even  to  the  plain  man, 
will  reveal  that,  for  an  experience  to  be  recognized  as  a  sensation, 
it  must  be  referred  to  the  subjective  order,  it  must  be  distinguished 
from  what  has  its  place  in  the  external  world,  and  must  be  related 
in  a  peculiar  way  to  a  certain  organized  body.  The  isolated  bit 
of  experience  —  if  such  a  thing  may  be  called  a  bit  of  experience 
—  is  neither  a  sensation  nor  a  thing. 

With  this  in  mind  let  us  examine  the  experience  to  which 
we  must  all  come  back  if  we  are  to  have  ground  of  any  sort  under 
our  feet.  I  have  said  that  one  thing  appears  to  present  itself,  i.e. 
the  desk,  and  have  asked  whether  this  is  to  be  taken  as  thing  or 
as  sensation.  But  it  ought  to  be  evident  that  there  is  an  ambigu- 
ity in  the  very  question.  In  itself  considered,  this  bit  of  expe- 
rience cannot  be  either  thing  or  sensation. 

It  is  not  given  as  either,  if  by  the  use  of  the  word  "given  "  we 
mean  to  exclude  its  reference  to  a  greater  complex.  It  is  given 
as  both,  if  we  mean  that  it  can  be  referred  to,  and  can  take  its 
place  in,  both  orders,  the  subjective  and  the  objective.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  experience  always  takes  its  place  in  the  one 
connection  or  the  other,  except  perhaps  at  the  very  beginning  of 
conscious  life,  or  at  the  moment  of  abstraction  when  the  philoso- 
pher is  striving  to  distinguish  clearly  between  what  a  thing  is  in 
itself  and  what  it  is  in  this  or  that  relation  to  other  things. 

And  it  should  not  be  overlooked  that  the  experience  takes  its 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     375 

place  more  readily  and  naturally  in  the  objective  order  than  in 
the  subjective.  This  is  a  commonplace  of  psychology,  and  is 
recognized  by  us  all  in  the  accepted  statement  that  children,  and, 
indeed,  most  men,  pay  much  more  attention  to  what  takes 
place  in  the  external  world  than  they  do  to  the  phenomena  of 
their  own  minds.  The  desk  is  the  desk  to  the  child,  i.e.  it  is  a 
part  of  the  same  system  of  things  with  the  rest  of  the  furniture 
of  the  room  and  with  his  body  long  before  it  is  consciously  viewed 
as  sensation.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  subjective  order  is  not 
recognized  by  the  child  implicitly.  It  only  means  that  it  stands 
out  with  less  clearness  than  the  other,  and  that  any  experience 
which  can  form  part  of  the  objective  order  is  more  apt  to  present 
itself  in  that  connection  than  in  the  other. 

This  is  true  of  grown  men,  as  well  as  of  children.  When, 
therefore,  I  ask  myself :  Is  the  one  thing  here  before  me  the  ex- 
ternal desk  or  the  sensation  ?  it  is  highly  probable  that  the  expe- 
rience has  already  taken  its  place  in  the  objective  order.  The 
words  "here  before  me  "  seem  to  be  enough  to  indicate  that  it  has 
done  so.  And  if  this  be  so,  it  is  absurd  to  ask  whether  the  ex- 
perience be  "  thing  "  or  "  sensation."  The  desk  is  a  thing,  and  it 
cannot  be  a  sensation. 

This,  then,  is  not  the  sensation.  But  where  is  the  sensation  ? 
Psychology  refers  it  to  the  brain,  and  seems  to  give  it  a  place,  in 
some  sense  of  the  word,  other  than  the  place  of  the  external 
object.  I  have  already  indicated  that,  when  the  external  thing  is 
a  momentary  occurrence,  the  sensation  assumed  to  represent  it  is 
assigned  a  time  different  from  that  of  the  occurrence  itself.  In 
the  next  chapter  I  shall  investigate  more  narrowly  what  is  meant 
by  assigning  to  sensations  a  time  and  a  place ;  but  it  is  enough 
here  to  point  out  that  both  the  plain  man  and  the  psychologist 
treat  sensations  somewhat  after  the  analogy  of  material  things. 

If,  then,  I  think  of  something  external  as  belonging  to  a  given 
time  and  place,  and,  following  the  example  which  has  been  set  for 
me,  think  of  the  corresponding  sensation  as  belonging  to  another 
time  and  place,  it  is  natural  that  I  should  be  puzzled  when  I  ask 
myself  how,  out  of  the  one  experience  which  I  seem  to  have  as  I 
look  at  my  desk,  I  shall  extract  the  dual  existence  of  thing  and 
sensation.  I  am  apt  to  look  for  the  sensation  in  the  same  objec- 
tive order  as  the  thing,  and  to  look  for  it  in  another  part  of  the 
same  order  —  to  seek  to  find  outside  of  the  body  and  in  the  brain 


376  Mind' and  Matter 

the  original  and  the  copy.  But  no  such  thing  is  to  be  found  in 
experience..  No  man  is  conscious  of  the  photograph  of  a  desk  and 
the  desk  itself.  To  pass  from  thing  to  sensation  we  must  leave 
the  objective  order  and  turn  to  the  subjective  order,  and  it  is  not 
easy  to  do  this  in. 'a  wholly  satisfactory  fashion,  for  we  all  have  a 
tendency  to  coriceivte  things  subjective  after  a  material  analogy. 

That  they  are  so  conceived  by  the  interactionist  was  made  plain 
in  the  chapter  on  "The  Atomic  Self,"  and  it  there  became  evident 
that  the  material  analogy  of  which  he  makes  use  quite  obscures 
for  him  the  distinction  of  the' mental  and  the  material.  That  they 
are  so  conceived  by  the  parallelist  was-  shown  in  the  chapters  on 
"Parallelism  "  ;  but  it  becomes  evident,  I  hope,  that  the  parallelistic 
doctrine,  while  it  seems  to  conceive  of  a  man's  mind  as  related  to 
his  head  much  as  a  saint's  halo  is  related  to  his  crown,  and  while, 
when  it  tries  to  grow  metaphysical,  it  falls  back  upon  material 
analogies  to  explain' the  constancy  of  this  relation',  nevertheless  is 
greatly  to  be  preferred  to'  the  doctrine  of  the  interactionist.  For 
one  thing,  it  does  not '  declare  defective  the  wonderful  mechanism 
of  the  external  world  ;*ahdf far  another,  it  denies  that  sensations 
are  to  be  found  in  the  same  world' with  things,  which  means  that 
it  does  not  confound  the  objective  and  the  subjective  orders  of 
experience.  ' : 

Now  there  is  no  objection  to  '  our  making  use  of  material 
analogies  in  conceiving  things  mental.  That  we  should  make  use 
of  them  to  some  degree  seems  unavoidable.  It  is,  however,  in  the 
highest  degree  important  that  we  should  not  be  misled  into  taking 
them  too  seriously.  It  is  most  convenient  to  represent  diagram- 
matically  the  mind  and  the  world  under  the  figure  suggested  by 
the  parallelist,  but  it  is  well  to  remember 'that  this  is  only  a  figure, 
and  must  not  be  accepted  literally.  We  must  keep  ourselves 
mindful  of ;,the  fact  that  the  parallelist  insists  that  the  objec- 
tive and  the  subjective  really  belong  to  different  worlds  and  must 
not  be  placed  literally  side-by-side.  If 'we  forget  this  aspect  of  his 
doctrine,  we  do  him  a  grave  injustice. 

If,  then,  we  cast  in  our  lot  with  the  parallelist,  —  and  if  we  are 
wise,  we  will  do  this,  —  not  forgetting  to  make  due  allowance  for 
the  diagrammatic  character  of  the  figure  employed  by  him,  we  will 
not  expect  to  find  in  any  intuitive  experience  the  original  and  the 
copy  for  which  men  are  so  apt  to  lt>ok.  We  shall  understand  that 
by  the  original,  the  external  thing,  is  meant  an  experienced  con- 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     377 

tent  recognized  as  having  its  .place ^in  the  objective  order,  as 
forming  part  of  the  material  world  ;  while'  by  the. .copy,  the  repre- 
sentative, the  sensation,  is  meant  this  content  recognized  as  having 
its  place  in  the  subjective  order,  as  related  to  the  changes  ;which 
take  place  in  the  body.  •<  ••>.  . 

Shall  we,  then,  say  that  the  one  experience  is  both  material 
thing  and  sensation,  the. one  in  the  one  connection,  and  the  other 
in  the  other?  It  is  a  fair  question  to  ask  whether,  and  in  what 
sense,  the  experience  may  be  called  ,one,  when  one  is  speaking 
thus.  The  thing  is  certainly  not  the  sensation;  they  may  perfectly 
well  be  distinguished  and  kept  apart.  We 'can.  conceive  of  the 
thing  as  existing  when  the  sensation  no  longer  exis,ts.n— -whe'n  -the 
human  body,  through,  which,  as  we  say,  the  thing,  has  become 
known,  has  been  destroyed,  .  Every  man  who  makes  his  will  draws 
this  distinction  between  the 'existence  of  the  thing  and  the  i  exist- 
ence of  the  sensation.  He  knows  perfectly  well  that  it  is  one 
thing  for  the  world  to  go  on  existing,  and  another  for  him  to  know 
it,  which  only  means  that  he  can  ,distinguish  between  the  objective 
order  and  the  subjective,  and  that  ;hei, does  not  confuse  the  one 
construct  with  the  other.  •.,'  ,-n  «;  , 

Thus  it  seems  sufficiently  plain  that  the  parallelis:t,iin.  insisting 
upon  the  complete  separation  of  sensations .  and  things,  has  laid 
hold  of  a  truth.  In  forgetting  that  he  is  employing  a  figure  some- 
what loosely,  he  is  betrayed  into  speaking  in  such  a  way  that  he 
set  us  wondering  how  an  external  world  can"  be-kriown  at,  all,- 
But,  when  we  understand  him,  we  can  approve  his  position,  and 
we  can  moreover  justify  the  psychologist  'in  ; -maintaining  that  we 
can  .know  no  more  of  the  external  world  than  is  'revealed  to  us 
through  our  sensations.  ,,  ..  -  IV-ioir;  .-,'  '. 

Every  element  of  experience  may  take  its  place  in  the  subjec- 
tive order,  i.e.  may  be  regarded  asi sensation.,., .  Even  that  which  I, 
at  one  moment  of  my  experience,  regard  as  objective,  may 'at  the 
next  moment  be  contrasted  as  subjective  with  another  objective. 
In  the  chapters  on  "  Appearance  and  Reality;,''  we  have  seen  how  the 
external  world  is  pushed  farther  and  farther  bffl  so  to  speak,  by  suc- 
cessive acts  of  reflection.  The  psychologist's  affirmation  that  the 
external  world  can  be  known  to  us  only  through:  sensation  is  the 
recognition  of  this  truth,  that  there  is  no  experience  .that  cannot 
conceivably  be  regarded  as  having 'its  .place  in'  the  .subjective 
order.  Even  the  external  world  of  which  science  speaks,  the 


378  Mind  and  Matter 

imperceptible  world  of  ether,  atoms,  and  molecules,  may  be 
regarded  as  the  highest  ideal  which  the  human  mind  has  as  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  building  up,  as  our  nearest  approximation  to  the  truth, 
and  may  be  contrasted  with  the  real  world  as  it  is.  Of  course, 
when  we  thus  think  it,  we  are  not  thinking  of  it  as  the  real  world : 
we  are  thinking  of  it  merely  as  our  thought  of  the  real  world,  and 
there  is  present  the  psychological  suggestion  which  is  always 
present  when  we  contrast  thing  and  sensation. 

One  may  pass  from  the  objective  order  to  the  subjective  at  any 
moment,  and  whatever  be  the  experience  with  which  we  are  con- 
cerned. There  is,  thus,  a  sense  in  which  we  can  say  that  our 
knowledge  of  things  cannot  extend  beyond  what  is  given  in  sensa- 
tion ;  but  it  must  be  apparent  to  the  discriminating  reader  that  if 
it  were  impossible  to  pass  as  well  from  the  subjective  order  to  the 
objective,  the  above  statement  would  be  meaningless,  for  no 
significance  would  attach  to  the  expression  "our  knowledge  of 
things." 

I  suppose  there  are  few  who  have  interested  themselves  in  the 
history  of  philosophy  who  are  not  acquainted  with  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  chapters  on  the  "  Relativity  of  Knowledge."  It  will  be 
remembered  that  Sir  William  compares 1  external  existence  to  a 
polygon  with  a  multitude  of  facets,  only  a  few  of  which  are  turned 
toward  us.  He  points  out  that  our  avenues  of  sense  are  few,  and 
argues  that  we  have  no  reason  to  limit  the  modes  of  existence  to 
the  extremely  small  number  revealed  to  us  through  our  organs  of 
sense.  He  quotes  with  approval  Voltaire's  parable,  in  which  the 
inhabitants  of  one  of  the  planets  of  the  dog-star  are  allowed  a 
thousand  senses,  and  yet  complain  that  the  number  is  too  limited. 
The  moral  of  the  whole  discussion  is  that,  had  we  still  other  organs 
of  sense  we  should  see  the  world  in  new  guises,  and  should  enjoy 
a  richer  and  more  varied  experience  than  that  which  we  enjoy  at 
present. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  accept  Sir  William's  theory  of  knowledge 
in  order  to  see  the  significance  of  the  truth  that  he  is  here  endeav- 
oring to  express.  It  has  been  a  thought  common  to  many  minds, 
that,  were  our  organs  of  sense  different,  our  sensations  would  be 
different;  and  were  our  sensations  different,  the  world  revealed  in 
our  experience  would  not  be  what  it  is.  One  can  hold  this  per- 
fectly well  without  taking  literally  the  diagrammatic  scheme  of 
1  "Lectures  on  Metaphysics,"  VIII. 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     379 

original  and  copy.  The  recognition  of  the  subjective  order,  the 
recognition  of  sensations  as  sensations,  is  the  recognition  of  our 
experiences  as  related  to  bodily  changes.  We  press  upon  one  eye, 
external  things  seem  to  be  doubled ;  we  suffer  from  an  indigestion, 
what  we  before  recognized  as  sweet  has  become  bitter  and  unpala- 
table. We  perceive  in  the  world  many  organized  bodies  more  or 
less  nearly  resembling  our  own,  and  we  make  allowance  for  these 
differences,  attributing  to  the  various  creatures  more  or  less  differ- 
ent sensations. 

And,  as  it  is  possible  to  refer  every  experience  to  the  subjec- 
tive order,  treating  it  as  sensation,  it  is  quite  possible  for  the 
man  who  has  reflected  upon  such  facts  as  these,  to  conclude  that 
those  elements  of  his  experience  which,  when  referred  to  the  sub- 
jective order,  he  calls  touch-movement  sensations,  and  which, 
when  referred  to  the  objective,  form  the  very  stuff  of  which  the 
external  world  is  made,  may  not,  in  the  experience  of  some  creature, 
play  the  r61e  that  they  play  in  his  own.  In  other  words,  he  may 
conceive  of  an  external  world  revealed  to  some  other  creature  — 
perhaps  to  himself  under  changed  circumstances  —  not  in  touch- 
movement  sensations,  but  in  experiences  of  some  other  sort.  It  is 
not  absurd  to  speak  of  such  possibilities,  and  they  readily  suggest 
themselves  to  the  psychologist  with  a  speculative  turn  of  mind. 

It  should  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  man  who  says,  "  If 
our  human  brains  and  sense-organs  were  different,  we  should  per- 
ceive a  different  world,"  has  no  right  to  deny  that  our  experience, 
such  as  it  is,  is  a  revelation  of  truth.  If  there  is  to  be  any  truth 
in  his  conclusion,  there  must  be  truth  in  the  premises  from  which 
it  is  deduced ;  that  is  to  say,  he  remains  in  the  one  system  of 
experiences  throughout,  merely  passing  from  one  construction  to 
another,  and  he  has  no  reason  to  believe  himself  at  any  point 
the  dupe  of  "  mere  appearance,"  or  to  assume  the  existence  of  a 
"beyond,"  which  forms  no  part  of  the  system. 

It  is,  then,  perfectly  legitimate  to  speculate  touching  the  possi- 
ble existence  of  new  senses,  new  sensations,  new  modes  in  which 
the  external  world  may  conceivably  be  revealed.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary to  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  everywhere  concerned  with  the 
subjective  order  and  the  objective  order  of  experience,  and  with  con- 
structions therein.  An  "  unknowable,"  a  "  thing-in-itself "  has 
evidently  no  part  to  play  in  the  whole  process.  One  can  draw 
every  distinction  which  it  is  necessary  to  draw  without  ever  refer- 


380  Mind  and  Matter 

ring  to  such  a  thing.  Its  assumption  is  due  to  an  imperfect  appre- 
hension of  what  is  meant  by  the  distinction  of  subjective  and 
objective.  Wherever  such  an  assumption  may  be  found,  it  betrays 
at  least  a  trace  of  the  tendency  so  evident  in  the  plain  man  and 
even  in  the  psychologist  to  take  too  literally  the  material  analogy 
by  which  we  make  comprehensible  to  ourselves  the  distinction  of 
mind  and  world. 

We  can  see,  thus,  that  much  may  be  said  for  the  psychological 
standpoint  which  has  been  so  often  discussed  in  the  chapters  pre- 
ceding. Its  very  inconsistency  is  its  salvation,  for  it  is  perfectly 
true  that,  in  a  sense,  the  mind  is  cut  off  from  the  external  world, 
and  that,  in  a  sense,  it  is  not.  The  distinction  between  the  sub- 
jective order  and  the  objective  order  of  experience  must  be  drawn, 
and  must  not  be  obliterated. 

The  fact  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  draw  it  clearly,  and  to 
avoid  passing  unconsciously  from  the  one  order  to  the  other,  is 
borne  in  upon  us  when  we  turn  to  what  certain  writers,  commonly 
regarded  as  very  clear  and  straightforward,  have  had  to  say  upon 
the  subject.  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  point  out1  that  John 
Stuart  Mill,  in  defining  material  things  as  "  permanent  possibilities 
of  sensation,"  passes  from  the  objective  order  to  the  subjective, 
and  introduces  a  psychological  suggestion  from  which  the  notion 
of  external  things  should  be  freed.  When  we  examine  his  account 
of  what  is  meant  by  the  mind,  we  discover  evidences  of  the  same 
imperfect  apprehension  of  what  constitutes  the  two  orders  of  expe- 
rience. He  writes  :  2  — 

"  The  permanent  possibility  of  feeling,  which  forms  my  notion 
of  myself,  is  distinguished  by  important  differences  from  the  per- 
manent possibilities  of  sensation  which  form  my  notion  of  what  I 
call  external  objects.  In  the  first  place,  each  of  these  last  repre- 
sents a  small  and  perfectly  definite  part  of  the  series,  which,  in  its 
entireness,  forms  my  conscious  existence  —  a  single  group  of  pos- 
sible sensations,  which  experience  tells  me  I  might  expect  to  have 
under  certain  conditions  ;  as  distinguished  from  mere  vague  and 
indefinite  possibilities,  which  are  considered  such  only  because  they 
are  not  known  to  be  impossibilities.  My  notion  of  myself,  on  the 
contrary,  includes  all  possibilities  of  sensation,  definite  or  indefi- 
nite, certified  by  experience  or  not,  which  I  may  imagine  inserted 

1  Chapter  VII. 

2  "  Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,"  Vol.  2,  Chapter  XII. 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind     381 

in  the  series  of  my  actual  and  conscious  states.  In  the  second 
place,  the  permanent  possibilities  which  I  call  outward  objects, 
are  possibilities  of  sensation  only,  while  the  series  which  I  call 
myself  includes,  along  with  and  as  called  up  by  these,  thoughts, 
emotions,  and  volitions,  and  permanent  possibilities  of  such. 
Besides  that  these  states  of  mind  are,  to  our  consciousness,  ge- 
nerically  distinct  from  the  sensations  of  our  outward  senses,  they 
are  further  distinguished  from  them  by  not  occurring  in  groups, 
consisting  of  separate  elements  which  coexist,  or  may  be  made  to 
coexist,  with  one  another.  Lastly  (and  this  difference  is  the  most 
important  of  all),  the  possibilities  of  sensation,  which  are  called 
outward  objects,  are  possibilities  of  it  to  other  beings  as  well  as 
to  me;  but  the  particular  series  of  feelings  which  constitute  my 
own  life  is  confined  to  myself,  no  other  sentient  being  shares  it 
with  me." 

In  the  above  extract,  Mill  does  not  attempt  to  give  a  detailed 
description  of  the  contents  of  a  mind  or  self,  and  even  if  he  did  so 
it  would  not  be  worth  while  for  me  to  criticise  it  at  length  here. 
Psychology  has  made  strides  since  his  day,  and  it  is  possible  to  draw 
up  now  a  better  inventory  of  the  furniture  of  a  mind  than  it  was 
not  many  years  since.  It  is,  of  course,  quite  true  that  we  think 
of  minds  as  containing  much  besides  sensations,  though  I  have  not 
dwelt  upon  this  in  the  present  chapter,  as  I  have  found  it  conven- 
ient to  defer  for  the  present  the  consideration  of  any  other  element 
than  sensation.  I  merely  wish  to  draw  attention  to  the  fact  that 
Mill  does  not  make  the  distinction  between  the  subjective  order 
and  the  objective  order  a  very  clear  one,  for  he  appears  to  make 
the  objective  order  a  part  of  the  subjective. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  an  external  object  represents  "  a  small 
and  perfectly  definite  part  of  the  series  which,  in  its  entireness, 
forms  my  conscious  existence,"  while  the  self  includes  the  whole 
series.  As  we  have  seen,  an  external  object  is  not,  as  exter- 
nal object,  a  group  of  sensations  whether  actual  or  possible, 
and  must  not,  as  external,  be  made  -part  of  a  mind.  What  is 
meant  by  the  statement  that  external  objects  are  shared  with 
me  by  other  beings  will  be  investigated  later,  but  there  is 
certainly  a  sense  in  which  we  may  say  that  two  men  per- 
ceive the  same  tree.  It  is  as  certainly  nonsense  to  say  that  two 
men  share  the  same  sensation.  The  difficulty  in  which  Mill  has 
entangled  himself  comes  clearly  to  the  surface  in  his  concluding 


382  Mind  and  Matter 

sentence.  If  "the  particular  series  of  feelings  which  constitutes 
my  own  life,  is  confined  to  myself,"  and  if,  as  we  have  seen,  my 
notion  of  myself  includes  all  possibilities  of  sensation  whatever, 
it  is  difficult  to  see  what  there  is  left  to  share  with  another  after 
we  have  made  external  objects  a  small  and  definite  part  of  the  all- 
inclusive  group  of  experiences  that  cannot  be  shared. 

It  is  easy  to  see  what  Mill  is  trying  to  say  in  this  extract.  It 
is  also  easy  to  see  that  he  has  not  succeeded  in  saying  it  in  such  a 
way  as  to  avoid  inconsistency.  It  is  not  without  significance  that 
in  this  attempt  to  distinguish  between  the  mental  and  the  physical, 
he  passes  over  in  silence  the  reference  of  sensations  to  the  body,  the 
contrasting  of  sensation  with  what  is  not  sensation.  Every  man 
who  turns  things  into  sensations  must  lose  the  real  distinction 
between  the  mind  and  the  world.  In  apprehending  one  truth  — 
the  truth  that  there  is  no  experience  which  may  not  be  referred  to 
the  subjective  order  —  he  has  lost  sight  of  another,  namely,  the 
truth  that  sensations  are  not  things,  nor  things  sensations,  and  that 
they  must  not  be  talked  about  in  the  same  way. 

The  same  confusion  is  clearly  traceable  in  the  writings  of  Pro- 
fessor Clifford,  who,  in  his  essay  "  On  the  Nature  of  Things-in- 
themselves,"  expresses  himself  as  follows  :  — 

"  My  feelings  arrange  and  order  themselves  in  two  distinct  ways. 
There  is  the  internal  or  subjective  order,  in  which  sorrow  succeeds 
the  hearing  of  bad  news,  or  the  abstraction  '  dog '  symbolizes  the 
perception  of  many  different  dogs.  And  there  is  the  external  or 
objective  order,  in  which  the  sensation  of  letting  go  is  followed  by 
the  sight  of  a  falling  object  and  the  sound  of  its  fall.  The  objec- 
tive order,  qud  order,  is  treated  by  physical  science,  which  investi- 
gates the  uniform  relations  of  objects  in  time  and  space.  Here  the 
word  'object'  (or  'phenomenon')  is  taken  merely  to  mean  a  group 
of  my  feelings,  which  persists  as  a  group  in  a  certain  manner ;  for  I 
am  at  present  considering  only  the  objective  order  of  my  feelings. 
The  object,  then,  is  a  set  of  changes  in  my  consciousness,  and  not 
anything  out  of  it.  Here  is  as  yet  no  metaphysical  doctrine,  but 
only  a  fixing  of  the  meaning  of  a  word.  We  may  subsequently 
find  reason  to  infer  that  there  is  something  which  is  not  object,  but 
which  corresponds  in  a  certain  way  with  the  object ;  this  will  be  a 
metaphysical  doctrine,  and  neither  it  nor  its  denial  is  involved  in 
the  present  determination  of  meaning.  But  the  determination 
must  be  taken  as  extending  to  all  those  inferences  which  are  made 


The  Distinction  between  the  World  and  the  Mind    383 

by  science  in  the  objective  order.  If  I  hold  that  there  is  hydrogen 
in  the  sun,  I  mean  that  if  I  could  get  some  of  it  in  a  bottle,  and 
explode  it  with  half  its  volume  of  oxygen,  I  should  get  that  group 
of  possible  sensations  which  we  call  'water.'  The  inferences  of 
physical  science  are  all  inferences  of  my  real  or  possible  feelings ; 
inferences  of  something  actually  or  potentially  in  my  consciousness, 
not  of  anything  outside  of  it." 

The  confusion  of  subjective  and  objective  is  here  so  plain  that 
it  appears  scarcely  necessary  to  comment  upon  it.  Objects  in  time 
and  space  are  made  groups  of  my  feelings  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
placed  in  the  subjective  order,  and  are  treated  as  sensations,  not 
as  external  things.  With  groups  of  my  feelings  physical  science 
is  not  concerned.  The  science  which  occupies  itself  with  them  is 
psychology,  and  that  science  does  not  mistake  them  for  external 
things  at  all.  Nor  can  one  fall  into  a  more  serious  misapprehension 
than  to  suppose  that  the  inferences  of  physical  science  are  "  infer- 
ences of  something  actually  or  potentially  in  my  consciousness," 
for  the  words  "  my  consciousness "  imply  an  unmistakable  refer- 
ence to  the  subjective  order ;  "  my  consciousness  "  is  nothing  other 
than  the  sum  total  of  "my  feelings."  When  the  objective  order  is 
thus  absorbed  into  the  subjective,  the  telephone  exchange  has  been 
drawn  into  the  clerk,  and  the  perplexities  of  the  man  who  looks  at 
the  candlestick  have  begun. 

A  little  reflection  shows,  moreover,  that  it  will  not  do  to  make 
everything  sensation  and  then  secure  for  ourselves  the  mere  sem- 
blance of  an  external  world  by  the  "  projection  outside  "  of  what 
is  really  "inside."  Professor  Pearson  has  abundantly  illustrated 
the  futility  of  this  attempt  in  his  picture  of  the  unhappy  clerk  who 
must  at  once  contain  his  exchange  and  be  contained  by  it.  We 
can  see  now  that  his  difficulty  arises  from  the  fact  that,  like  Mill 
and  Clifford,  he  makes  the  subjective  order  all-inclusive,  and  yet 
endeavors  to  retain  an  objective  order  of  some  sort  as  a  part  of  the 
former.  It  results  from  this  that  the  external  object  must  be  at 
once  sensation  and  external  object,  subjective  and  not  subjective. 
This  contradictory  r<51e  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  for  it  to  play. 
In  so  far  as  it  is  sensation,  it  cannot  be  thing ;  and  in  so  far  as  it  is 
thing,  it  cannot  be  sensation. 

The  rather  common  tendency  to  grant  a  certain  chronological 
or  logical  priority  to  sensations,  and  to  conceive  the  external  world 
to  be  constructed  out  of  them,  seems  to  be  due  in  part  to  what  has 


384  Mind  and  Matter 

been  so  happily  called  the  psychologist's  fallacy.  "We  speak  of  an 
infant  as  having  sensations  before  the  complex  called  its  percep- 
tion of  an  external  world  has  as  yet  been  built  up  in  its  experience. 
What  we  call  its  sensations  are  very  properly  called  such, /row  our 
point  of  view.  We  distinguish  between  its  sensations  and  its  body, 
and  relate  its  sensations  to  its  body  in  certain  rather  definite  ways. 
In  other  words,  we  refer  the  experiences  in  question  to  the  subjec- 
tive order,  and  it  is  because  we  do  this  that  we  call  them  sensa- 
tions. But  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  infant,  if  it  can  be  said  to 
have  a  point  of  view,  the  experiences  are  not  sensations,  for  they 
are  not  supposed  to  be  referred  to  any  order  at  all.  When  experi- 
ences come  to  be  regarded  as  "  inner,"  it  means  that  the  two  orders, 
inner  and  outer,  have  come  to  be  distinguished,  however  dimly. 
It  is  not  more  sensible,  to.  say  that  sensations  are  chronologically  or 
logically  prior  to  things,  than  it  is  to  say  that  the  inside  of  a  hat  is 
chronologically  or  logically  prior  to  the  outside. ; 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
THE   TIME  AND  PLACE  OF   SENSATIONS   AND  IDEAS 

THUS  we  see  that  sensations,  in  order  to  be  sensations,  must  not 
be  isolated  shreds  of  experience,  but  must  stand  in  a  certain  con- 
text. They  must  be  contrasted  with  and  related  to  a  world  of 
material  things ;  and  more  especially  must  they  be  related  to  that 
most  important  of  material  things,  the  body. 

This  doctrine  is  entirely  in  harmony  with  the  somewhat  vague 
deliverances  of  common  thought.  Every  one  who  comes  to  distin- 
guish between  sensations  and  things  refers  sensations  in  some  way 
to  the  body.  By  the  unreflective  this  reference  is  most  naturally 
and  easily  accomplished  by  treating  sensations  very  much  as  though 
they  were  material  things  of  a  somewhat  peculiar  order,  and  by 
putting  them  in  the  body  in  a  material  sense.  As  we  have  seen, 
this  materializing  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  plain  man  is  raised 
to  the  rank  of  a  philosophical  position  in  the  ancient  and  still 
popular  doctrine  of  the  atomic  self,  the  doctrine  of  the  interaction- 
ist.  He  who  would  place  the  self  literally  in  the  body,  or  set  sen- 
sations to  simmering  "  in  the  same  vat "  with  brain  motions,  has 
fallen  into  an  error  which  is  the  direct  opposite  of  the  one  com- 
mented upon  at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter.  We  there  saw  that 
certain  philosophers  have  been  misled  into  obliterating  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  objective  order  and  the  subjective  order  by  declar- 
ing external  things  to  be  sensations.  Here  the  same  distinction  is 
obliterated  by  giving  what  is  subjective  a  place  in  the  objective 
order. 

Perhaps  I  would  better  say  the  distinction  is  obscured,  for  it  is 
never  wholly  obliterated.  The  interactionist  does  not,  as  we  have 
seen,  turn  sensations,  ideas  of  "  selves,"  into  purely  material  things, 
for  he  cannot  wholly  overlook  the  fact  that  such  things  have  their 
place  in  the  subjective  order.  He  makes  them  vaguely  and  incon- 
sistently material.  But  whatever  the  degree  of  his  vagueness  and 
inconsistency,  he  holds  tenaciously,  as  he  should,  to  the  bodily 
2c  385 


386  Mind  and  Matter 

reference  which  cannot  be  overlooked  if  any  experience  is  to  be 
regarded  as  belonging  to  the  subjective  order. 

It  is  interesting  to  remark  that  those  who  explicitly  resolve  ex- 
ternal things  into  sensations  are  as  unable  to  dispense  with  this  bodily 
reference  as  is  any  one  else.  It  is  true  that  in  the  extract  quoted  in 
the  last  chapter,  Mill  attempts  to  distinguish  between  the  mind  and 
the  world  without  referring  to  the  body  at  all.  But  it  is  also  true 
that,  immediately  afterward,  when  he  is  stating  the  argument  for 
the  existence  of  other  minds,  he  at  once  takes  up  what  he  has  over- 
looked before,  arid  founds  his  argument  upon  it.  Clifford,  when 
he  has  turned  "  objects  in  time  and  space  "  into  groups  of  "  my 
feelings,"  seems  to  have  made  impossible  any  relation  between  my 
feelings  as  a  whole  and  any  external  object  whatever ;  and  yet,  in 
his  argument  for  parallelism,  we  not  only  find  him  referring  mental 
facts  to  the  body,  but  specifying  to  what  particular  part  of  the 
body  they  are  to  be  referred :  "  the  mental  fact  is  somewhere  or 
other  in  the  region  RCCB  of  the  diagram,  and  does  not  include 
the  two  ends." 1  And  as  for  Professor  Pearson,  he  keeps  putting 
sensations  "at  the  brain-terminals  of  the  sensory  nerves,"  even 
when  nerves  and  brain  have  been  themselves  declared  "  inside  " 
and  are  looking  around  in  vain  for  a  terminal  at  which  to  place 
themselves. 

Psychology  and  cerebral  physiology,  of  course,  emphasize  the 
bodily  reference  of  sensations.  In  the  existing  state  of  our  knowl- 
edge the  psychologist  and  the  physiologist  are  not  forced  to  declare 
themselves  either  for  interaction  or  for  parallelism.  They  may  do 
good  work  in  their  respective  fields  without  trying  to  make  very 
clear  what  they  mean  by  "localization,"  or  just  how  they  are  to 
conceive  of  mind  and  matter  as  related.  But  that  mental  phe- 
nomena are  related  to  the  changes  which  take  place  in  the  body, 
and  that  it  is  their  duty  to  discover  as  many  such  relations  as 
possible,  and  to  substitute,  where  they  can,  accurate  and  definite 
information  for  the  vague  knowledge  of  the  plain  man,  they  seem 
generally  to  assume  as  self-evident.  In  some  sense  of  the  words, 
they  assign  to  sensations,  as  does  the  plain  man,  their  time  and 
place  of  being.  If  we  refuse  to  follow  them  in  this,  we  seem  to 
repudiate  outright  a  mass  of  material  that  has  been  heaped  together 
by  certain  sciences,  which  are,  it  is  true,  highly  incomplete,  but 
which  we  surely  cannot  regard  as  speaking  without  some  authority. 

1  See  Chapter  XIX. 


The  Time  and  Place  of  Sensations  and  Ideas      387 

Philosophers  of  many  schools  have  been  at  one  in  allowing  to 
what  have  sometimes  been  called  the  phenomena  of  the  internal 
sense  an  existence  in  time.  That  a  sensation  may  come  into  being 
at  this  moment  rather  than  at  that  men  have  not  been  tempted  to 
dispute.  But  a  venerable  tradition  has  denied  to  mental  phenomena 
an  existence  in  space,  or  at  any  rate  such  an  unequivocal  existence 
in  space  as  is  enjoyed  by  material  things.  The  ubiquitous  "  tota 
in  toto  "  soul  of  Plotinus  and  of  the  Schoolmen  is,  as  we  have  seen,1 
in  the  body  in  a  very  dubious  sense  of  the  word.  Descartes,  to 
whom  the  presence  of  the  soul  in  the  little  pineal  gland  was  as  the 
presence  of  the  engineer  in  the  cab  of  his  locomotive,  was  yet 
unwilling  to  declare  himself  for  a  definite  and  unambiguous  locali- 
zation. The  echo  of  this  ancient  tradition,  as  we  find  it  in  the 
mind  of  the  plain  man  to-day,  unmistakably  shows  a  disinclination 
to  attribute  to  mental  phenomena  space-relations  proper,  notwith- 
standing the  strong  tendency  to  conceive  of  things  mental  after 
the  analogy  of  things  material.  Men  generally  object  to  saying 
that  sensations  and  ideas  are  extended  and  occupy  space,  and  the 
psychologist  shares  the  general  objection. 

We  appear,  thus,  to  be  confronted  with  conflicting  tendencies. 
On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  impulse  to  give  to  mental  phenomena 
a  definite  place  in  the  system  of  things  as  a  whole  by  assigning  to 
them  their  moment  of  time  and  their  location  in  space ;  on  the 
other,  there  is  the  feeling  that  location  in  space,  at  least,  cannot 
be  frankly  granted  them.  This  conflict  of  tendencies  usually 
results  in  much  indefiniteness  touching  the  nature  of  mental  phe- 
nomena and  the  manner  of  their  existence.  It  seems  possible  to 
do  away  with  this  vagueness,  in  part,  at  least,  by  determining 
more  precisely  in  what  sense  it  is  permissible  to  assign  to  mental 
phenomena  a  time  and  place. 

Let  us  suppose  a  plain  man  to  be  watching  from  a  distance  a 
laborer  striking  blows  with  his  sledge  upon  the  track  of  a  railroad. 
He  hears  the  sound  when  he  sees  the  hammer  in  the  air,  not  when  he 
sees  it  touch  the  track.  But  he  does  not  refer  the  sensation  to  the 
upward  stroke,  for  he  allows  for  the  time  it  takes  the  sound,  as  he 
expresses  it,  to  reach  his  ear.  In  other  words,  he  distinguishes 
between  the  time  of  some  occurrence  in  the  external  world  and 
the  time  of  his  sensation,  fixing  the  latter  at  the  instant  at  which 
some  impression  is  made  upon  his  body.  Such  experiences  as  the 

1  Chapter  XVII. 


388  Mind  and  Matter 

above  make  it  quite  comprehensible  to  him,  when  he  has  once 
been  informed  of  the  fact,  that  he  might  continue  to  see  the 
sun  for  some  time  after  the  complete  annihilation  of  that  body. 
He  has  Only  to  think  that,  as  the  sound  reached  his  ear  later 
than  the  blow  to  which  he  referred  it,  so  the  light  will  travel 
toward  his  eye  even  when  the  blaze  which  gave  it  birth  has  been 
extinguished. 

With  this  distinction  between  the  time  of  some  external  occur- 
rence and  the  time  of  the  sensation  referred  to  it,  the  psychologist 
has  no  quarrel  save  on  the  score  of  lack  of  accuracy.  To  say  that 
one  hears  a  sound  when  a  certain  disturbance  in  the  air  reaches 
the  ear,  or  that  one  has  a  sensation  of  sight  when  light  reaches 
the  eye,  is,  he  thinks,  loose  and  inexact.  His  endeavor  is  to  fix 
more  definitely  the  time  at  which  sensations  come  into  being. 

He  introduces  me  to  a  rather  simple  bit  of  mechanism  so  con- 
structed as  to  let  fall  a  shutter  and  to  record  the  exact  moment  of 
its  fall.  I  place  my  finger  upon  a  key,  pressure  upon  which  is  to 
record  the  moment  at  which  I  perceive  the  shutter  to  fall. 
When  I  have  made  the  movement  and  read  off  the  result,  I 
discover  a  discrepancy  between  the  record  I  have  made  and  the 
automatic  record  made  by  the  machine.  I  say  that  an  appreciable 
time  has  elapsed  between  the  actual  fall  of  the  shutter  and  the 
emergence  in  my  consciousness  of  the  visual  sensation. 

I  cannot  account  for  the  discrepancy  by  saying  that  the  time 
was  lost  in  the  passage  of  the  rays  of  light  from  the  falling  shutter 
to  my  eye.  The  motion  of  light-waves  is  so  inconceivably  rapid 
that  the  time  lost  thus  is  inappreciable.  As  a  result  of  his  re- 
searches, the  psychologist  is  ready  to  describe  the  moments  which 
have  elapsed,  as  the  time  taken  by  the  passage  of  a  certain  impulse 
through  the  body,  from  eye  to  brain,  and  from  brain  to  finger. 
He  even  divides  up  somewhat  roughly  the  whole  interval,  distin- 
guishing between  time  taken  up  by  the  disturbance  in  the  sense- 
organ,  by  the  journey  of  the  message  along  the  sensory  nerve  to 
the  brain,  by  the  passage  through  the  brain,  by  the  journey  of  the 
message  along  the  motor  nerve,  and  by  the  contraction  of  the 
muscles.  These  subdivisions  of  the  whole  interval  he  is  by  no 
means  in  a  position  to  measure  accurately;  but  the  mere  recog- 
nition of  their  existence  is  enough  to  prevent  him  from  accept- 
ing the  time  of  the  record  I  have  made  as  the  true  time  of 
the  sensation.  The  time  of  my  sensation  is  somewhere  between 


The  Time  and  Place  of  Sensations  and  Ideas      389 

the  two  times  recorded,  and  the  psychologist  assumes  — not  with- 
out reason  —  that  the  true  time  is  that  at  which  the  message 
passed  through  the  brain  or  some  part  of  the  brain. 

In  the  present  state  of  cerebral  physiology  it  is  useless  to  ask 
precisely  what  part ;  no  man  is  in  a  position  to  say  exactly  what 
disturbance  in  the  brain  is  to  be  assumed  to  be  connected  most 
intimately  with  this  or  that  sensation.  The  parallelist  may  speak 
enthusiastically  of  a  "point  for  point"  correspondence,  but  he 
should  admit  that  in  speaking  thus  he  is  describing  an  as  yet 
unattained  ideal,  and  is  not  giving  an  accurate  account  of  what  is 
definitely  known.  He  cannot  relate  given  mental  phenomena  to 
given  molecular  motions  in  the  brain,  for  we  really  know  nothing 
of  such  molecular  motions.  Even  that  vaguer  localization  which 
would  fix  the  time  of  the  emergence  of  a  sensation  at  the  moment 
when  a  particular  region  of  the  brain  is  thrown  into  agitation  is  a 
matter  of  much  dispute.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  of  the 
brain  must  be  concerned  in  the  disturbance  with  which  we  connect 
any  mental  fact. 

But,  admitting  all  this,  no  reasonable  man  will  affirm  that  the 
labors  of  the  psychologist  and  physiologist  have  been  in  vain.  The 
vague  reference  of  sensations  to  the  body,  which  we  find  in  common 
thought,  has  been  made  more  explicit.  The  time  of  the  sensations 
has  been  fixed  within  narrower  limits,  and  it  is  conceivable  that, 
with  the  growth  of  human  knowledge,  it  may  come  to  be  fixed 
within  much  narrower  limits  still.  We  may  some  day  discover  to 
just  what  cerebral  disturbance  a  given  mental  fact  is  to  be  referred, 
and  we  may  determine  with  exactitude  the  time  of  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  this  disturbance. 

It  may  be  objected  that,  in  doing  this,  one  is,  after  all,  deter- 
mining only  the  time  of  certain  occurrences  in  the  material  world, 
and  not  fixing  the  time  of  the  sensation  itself.  But  what  else 
than  this  can  it  mean  to  determine  the  time  of  a  sensation?  The 
time  which  we  seek  is  evidently  real  time.  There  is  but  one  real 
time.  The  real  time  of  an  occurrence  means  the  point,  in  the 
series  of  changes  which  constitute  the  life-history  of  the  real  world, 
at  which  the  occurrence  takes  place.  The  sensation,  as  sensation, 
cannot  be  assigned  a  place  in  this  series  of  changes.  When  we 
speak  of  its  time  —  its  real  time — we  can  only  mean  the  time  of 
that  material  change  to  which  we  relate  the  sensation  as  the  plain 
man  relates  his  sensations  to  his  body.  It  is  this  that  we  endeavor 


390  Mind  and  Matter 

to  determine  in  psychological  investigations,  as  becomes  clear  when 
we  study  the  actual  procedure  of  the  psychologist. 

That  we  are  concerned  with  real  time,  the  time  of  the  external 
world,  becomes  the  more  apparent  when  we  call  to  mind  the  dis- 
tinction drawn  by  plain  man  and  psychologist  alike,  between  real 
time  and  apparent.  The  weary  occupant  of  the  pew  knows  that 
the  tiresome  sermon  only  seems  long  ;  the  experimenter  with  nar- 
cotics knows  that  whole  ages  may  seem  to  pass  in  what  is  really 
a  brief  interval ;  such  words  as  pastime,  passetemps,  Zeitvertreib, 
hold  the  distinction  in  a  state  of  crystallization,  and  embody  the  uni- 
versal experience  that  certain  hours  are,  subjectively  considered, 
much  longer  than  others.  No  schoolboy  supposes  that  the  clock 
loiters  in  the  morning  and  makes  up  for  its  laziness  in  the  after- 
noon, when  he  is  on  the  playground.  Heal  time  and  apparent 
time  are  recognized  by  every  one,  and  sometimes  the  psychologist 
occupies  himself  with  the  one  and  sometimes  with  the  other ;  but 
when  it  is  a  question  of  the  moment  at  which  a  sensation  comes 
into  being,  or  of  the  actual  duration  of  a  sensation,  what  he  is  con- 
cerned with  is  the  real  time.  To  determine  this  real  time  he  must 
discover  what  bodily  change  it  is  that  may  be  most  directly  related 
to  the  mental  experience. 

We  have  seen  that  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  admit  that 
mental  phenomena  may  exist  in  time,  while  there  has  been  much 
more  hesitation  in  admitting  that  they  may  exist  in  space.  Per- 
haps this  is  in  part  due  to  the  fact,  that  many  different  occurrences 
may  be  referred  to  the  same  moment,  without  crowding  each  other 
out  of  existence ;  whereas,  it  seems  to  be  our  experience  that  but 
one  material  thing  can  occupy  a  given  space  at  a  given  time.  I 
may  somewhat  loosely  refer  a  sensation  and  the  corresponding 
cerebral  disturbance  to  the  same  moment  of  time,  without  being 
conscious  of  assimilating  the  one  to  the  other,  and  of  making  the 
sensation  material.  But  if  I  assign  to  mental  phenomena  a  place 
—  literally  a  place  —  I  seem  at  once  to  turn  them  into  material 
things,  which  occupy  their  place  to  the  exclusion  of  other  things. 
If  I  hesitate  to  make  them  so  palpably  material,  and  assign  to 
them  no  definite  place  of  their  own,  but  place  "  in  general,"  I 
create  a  phantom,  an  irresponsible  Plotinic  soul,  a  creature  of  mere 
verbal  draperies.  We  have  no  experience  of  anything  that  occu- 
pies space  in  this  abnormal  way.  There  seems  to  be  but  one  way 
of  occupying  space,  and  to  occupy  it  in  that  way  a  thing  must  be 


The  Time  and  Place  of  Sensations  and  Ideas      391 

unequivocally  material.  It  is,  hence,  natural  that  men  who  have 
grasped  even  indefinitely  the  distinction  between  the  subjective 
order  and  the  objective  should  hesitate  to  assign  to  mental  phe- 
nomena a  location  in  space. 

Of  course,  it  is  evident  to  the  discriminating  mind  that  mental 
phenomena  cannot  literally  be  assigned  a  place  in  real  time,  any 
more  than  they  can  be  assigned  a  position  in  real  space.  Real 
time  is  an  aspect  of  the  external  world  just  as  truly  as  is  real 
space,  and  we  have  just  seen  that  to  determine  the  real  time  of  a 
mental  fact  means  no  more  than  to  determine  the  time  of  the  cor- 
responding bodily  change.  But  just  as  we  can  determine  more  or 
less  definitely  the  time  of  the  bodily  change  to  which  we  refer  a 
mental  fact,  and  can  thus,  in  a  sense,  determine  the  time  of  the 
mental  fact,  so  we  can  more  or  less  definitely  determine  the  part  of 
the  body  concerned  most  intimately  in  the  occurrence,  and  thus, 
in  a  sense,  localize  the  mental  phenomenon. 

It  is  not  nonsense  to  speak  of  sensations  as  in  the  brain,  or  at 
the  brain,  as  the  psychologist  so  often  does.  It  is  merely  a  loose 
and  rather  misleading  way  of  expressing  an  undoubted  truth.  The 
sentence  becomes  nonsensical  only  when  it  is  taken  too  literally. 
The  exact  determination  of  the  cerebral  disturbance  that  we  are 
justified  in  connecting  with  any  mental  phenomenon  is  the  only 
possible  determination  of  the  time  and  place  of  the  phenomenon. 
It  is  this  that  gives  it  its  bond  of  connection  with  the  real  world, 
and  makes  it  the  experience  of  such  and  such  a  person  at  such  and 
such  a  time  —  an  experience  to  be  distinguished  from  every  other 
ivhich  has  been,  is,  or  shall  be. 

In  the  above  pages  I  have,  for  convenience,  concerned  myself 
chiefly  with  sensations,  but  what  has  been  said  applies  to  all  men- 
tal phenomena  equally.  When  the  plain  man  thinks  about  the 
matter  at  all,  he  puts  the  contents  of  his  memory  and  imagination 
into  his  mind  as  lie  does  his  sensations,  and  he  refers  his  mind  to 
his  body.  The  psychologist  distinguishes  much  more  carefully 
between  presentative  and  representative  mental  contents,  and 
refers  the  latter,  not  to  a  cerebral  disturbance  initiated  by  a  mes- 
sage conducted  along  a  sensory  nerve,  but  to  one  which  is  centrally 
initiated,  or,  at  least,  to  one  which  owes  its  character  to  the  traces 
left  by  earlier  messages  conducted  along  sensory  nerves. 

The  proof  of  the  fact  that  all  ideas,  as  well  as  all  sensations, 
have  what  is  sometimes  called  a  physical  basis,  we  may  leave  to 


392  Mind  and  Matter 

the  psychologist.  It  can  manifestly  not  be  proved  in  complete 
detail,  and  it  can  certainly  not  be  proved  in  such  a  way  as  to  con- 
vince those  who  are  unwilling  to  believe  it.  It  is  enough  to  say  here 
that  it  is  in  the  direct  line  of  the  evidence  so  far  furnished  by  the 
development  of  the  sciences  of  physiology  and  psychology.  Accept- 
ance of  the  fact  does  not  in  the  least  imply  a  tendency  to  materialize 
mental  phenomena.  It  signifies  merely  that  they  are  not  left  at  loose 
ends,  and  without  definite  relation  to  the  real  world.  It  means 
that  their  time  and  place  of  existence,  in  the  only  sense  in  which 
the  real  time  and  place  of  anything  in  the  subjective  order  can  be 
spoken  of  at  all,  can  be,  theoretically  at  least,  determined.  It 
means  that  the  system  of  things  as  a  whole,  the  universe  which 
contains  minds  as  well  as  material  things,  is  a  Cosmos  throughout, 
and  that  its  order  seems  to  us  now  indefinite  and  more  or  less 
chaotic  only  because  we  are  ignorant. 

That  men  generally  are  in  the  habit  of  assigning  a  time  and  a 
place  to  mental  phenomena  of  all  sorts  in  a  certain  vague  and 
indefinite  way  can  hardly  be  denied.  That  the  lack  of  clearness  in 
their  thought  leads  them  into  embarrassments,  when  one  endeavors 
to  get  them  to  state  what  they  really  do  believe,  is  equally 
evident. 

When,  for  example,  I  ask  the  undergraduate,  who  is  for  the 
first  time  seriously  struggling  with  the  difficulties  of  reflection,  to 
imagine  the  City  Hall,  and  then  ask  him  where  the  image  is,  I  am 
promptly  informed  that  it  is  in  his  mind.  When  I  ask  the  size  of 
the  image,  he  scents  a  trap  and  hesitates.  The  image  is  in  his 
mind  and  his  mind  is  in  his  bod}'- ;  it  is,  therefore,  impossible  that 
the  image  should  be  nearly  as  large  as  it  seems.  He  hazards  the 
guess  that,  although  it  seems  large,  it  must  be  small,  and  must 
represent  the  original  as  a  photograph  represents  an  object  greater 
than  itself.  Where  is  this  hypothetical  little  image  ?  Presumably 
in  the  brain.  Is  he  conscious,  when  he  imagines  the  City  Hall,  of 
anything  like  a  little  image  in  the  brain  ?  Not  in  the  least ;  it  is  a 
mere  matter  of  inference.  But  if  this  image  which  seems  to  stand 
so  clearly  before  him  is  really  in  a  place  in  which  it  does  not  in 
the  least  seem  to  be,  and  is  really  a  minute  thing  when  it  seerns 
to  be  an  enormous  one,  how  does  he  know  that  he  is  not  always 
fed  with  illusions?  Is  anything  where  it  seems  to  be,  and  as  big 
as  it  seems  to  be  ?  He  is  willing  to  affirm  that  some  things  are, 
but  he  finds  himself  unable  to  offer  evidence  of  the  fact.  It  is  a 


The  Time  and  Place  of  Sensations  and  Ideas      393 

thing  to  be  accepted  —  "  everybody  knows  "  that  real  buildings  are 
not  like  pictures  in  the  imagination. 

If,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  I  accept  the  dictum  of  "every- 
body," and  merely  inquire  more  narrowly  into  his  notion  of  how 
this  little  picture  exists  in  the  brain,  I  find  him  loath  to  enlighten 
me.  However  small  the  image,  it  seems  self-evident  that,  to  be 
an  image  at  all,  it  must  have  some  extension.  Am  I  to  conceive 
of  that  long  row  of  windows  as  really  stretching  across  the  image  ? 
Are  they  really  side  by  side  in  the  brain,  so  that  the  row  occupies 
space  there  ?  What  I  seem  to  be  conscious  of,  the  varied  expanse 
of  color,  cannot  literally  be  there,  for  the  place  is  as  dark  as  Egypt, 
and  it  is  no  place  for  colors.  What,  then,  is  there  ?  Surely  noth- 
ing that  is  enough  of  a  picture  to  be  looked  for  as  men  look  for 
such  things  elsewhere.  The  existence  of  the  picture  on  the  retina 
of  the  eye  is  not  merely  admitted  by  "  everybody,"  but  is  a  thing 
to  be  proved.  The  man  who  doubts  the  existence  of  such  in  his 
own  eyes,  may,  if  he  chooses,  take  out  one  eye,  remove  the  sclerotic 
coat  from  the  back  of  it,  and  inspect  the  picture  on  the  transparent 
retina  with  the  eye  that  remains  to  him.  The  existence  of  the 
little  picture  in  the  brain,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  be  analogous 
to  the  existence  of  Mrs.  Harris  —  evident  to  but  one  person,  and 
doubtfully  evident  to  that  one. 

The  more  the  student  reflects  upon  the  matter,  the  more  disin- 
clined is  he  to  stand  out  boldly  for  the  little  picture  in  the  brain. 
He  can  be  brought  to  see  that  one  cannot  grant  the  thing  extension 
without  assigning  it  a  place,  and  a  right  to  a  certain  amount  of 
space,  and  that  he  who  does  this  materializes  it.  He  realizes  that 
he  cannot  admit  it  to  be  material  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word. 
It  cannot  be  looked  for  as  can  material  things.  He  may  conse- 
quently fall  in  with  the  ancient  tradition  and  deny  to  mental 
phenomena  any  extension  whatever.  His  image  is  now,  not 
merely  a  small  image,  but  it  is  no  image  at  all ;  it  has  no  part 
out  of  part.  It  represents  things  which  have  parts,  in  some  un- 
known and  inscrutable  way,  but  it  represents  them  without  being 
in  the  least  like  them. 

The  tendency  which  has  resulted  in  such  a  treatment  of  mental 
phenomena  seems  to  have  reached  its  limit  in  the  insistence  by  an 
eminent  psychologist  of  our  own  day  upon  the  fact  that  the  total 
content  of  a  consciousness  at  any  moment  must  be  conceived  as  an 
indivisible  unit,  as  totally  without  parts.  When  the  student  is 


394  Mind  and  Matter 

introduced  to  this  doctrine  it  seems  to  him  that  something  can  be 
said  for  it.  The  barber's-pole  which  I  imagine  cannot  really  have 
white  out  of  red  and  red  out  of  white,  as  it  seems  to  have,  or  it 
would  be  an  extended  thing,  it  would  occupy  space  and  be  material. 
On  the  other  hand,  how  can  a  truly  indivisible  unit  seem  to  have 
white  out  of  red  and  red  out  of  white.  A  very  little  thing — a 
microscopic  thing  —  may  seem  to  be  so  colored ;  but  it  is  inconceiv- 
able that  a  mathematical  point  should  be  variegated,  and  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  it  should  be  made  to  seem  so.  And  how  can  my 
mental  picture  of  a  horse  represent  a  horse  unless  in  the  sense  that 
head  corresponds  to  head,  body  to  body,  tail  to  tail,  and  legs  to 
legs  ?  The  horse  I  imagine  does  not  represent  the  one  I  have  seen 
"indistinguishably" ;  I  can  specify  the  points  of  resemblance  in 
detail,  and  they  seem  unmistakably  distinguishable  from  each 
other.  No  real  horse  ever  had  it  legs  more  palpably  side  by  side 
than  are  the  legs  of  the  horse  that  I  am  imagining  at  this  moment. 

What,  then,  shall  we  decide  ?  That  they  really  are  side  by  side  ? 
The  imaginary  horse  is  made  to  occupy  space.  That  they  are  not 
side  by  side,  but  only  seem  so  ?  What  manner  of  thing  has  this 
imaginary  horse  become  ?  What  are  we  to  conceive  the  true 
nature  of  sensations  and  ideas  to  be  —  not  their  seeming  nature,  for 
that  appears  to  be  mere  illusion,  but  their  real  nature  ?  Such  a 
doctrine  as  this,  if  it  really  were  taken  seriously,  would  make  psy- 
chology an  impossible  science  ;  but  the  psychologist  does  not  take 
it  seriously,  for  he  does  not  hesitate  to  analyze  mental  phenomena, 
to  distinguish  between  the  elements  which  enter  into  their  com- 
position, and,  in  short,  to  treat  them  as  though  they  were  by  no 
means  the  inconceivable  entities  they  are  sometimes  described 
as  being  by  psychologist  and  philosopher,  but  rather  a  something 
more  or  less  plainly  revealed  in  experience  and  capable  of  being 
discussed  in  a  plain  and  straightforward  way. 

We  are  extricated  from  our  dilemma  when  we  keep  clearly 
before  our  mind  the  distinction  between  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  orders  of  experience.  It  is  perfectly  just  to  say  that  the 
picture  of  a  horse  in  the  imagination  has  part  out  of  part,  and  that 
the  legs  are  side  by  side  ;  to  deny  this  fact  is  to  deny  one  of  the 
clearest  deliverances  of  consciousness.  It  is  equally  just  to  say  that 
the  image  is  not  extended  and  does  not  occupy  space.  The  mere 
fact  that  we  recognize  the  image  as  imaginary  excludes  it  from  the 
world  of  material  things. 


The  Time  and  Place  of  Sensations  and  Ideas      395 

The  reconciliation  of  the  apparent  contradiction  lies  in  the  per- 
ception of  the  truth  that  those  who,  in  accordance  with  the  ancient 
tradition,  insist  that  the  image  must  be  denied  extension,  are  deny- 
ing to  it  real  extension  in  real  space,  i.e.  they  are  simply  denying 
that  sensations  and  ideas,  as  sensations  and  ideas,  can  be  a  part  of  the 
material  system  of  things.  In  this  they  are  wholly  in  the  right.  But 
they  fall  into  error  when  they  are  misled  into  supposing  that  this 
forces  them  to  deny  t\\Qextensityoi  the  experience  in  itself  considered, 
its  complexity,  its  having  part  out  of  part  in  "  crude  space,"  subjec- 
tive space.  We  have  seen  that  every  experience  may  be  assigned 
a  place  in  the  subjective  order.  It  does  not  cease  to  be  the  bit  of 
experience  it  was  before,  when  it  is  placed  in  such  a  context.  It 
need  not  lose  its  character  and  shrivel  to  a  point.  But,  as  holding 
its  place  in  the  subjective  order,  as  mental  phenomenon,  it  mani- 
festly cannot  occupy  real  space.  Its  real  place,  in  the  only  sense  in 
which  one  can  speak  of  its  real  place,  can  be  indicated  in  no  other 
way  than  by  indicating  the  cerebral  disturbance  with  which  the 
experience  is  conceived  to  be  connected. 

The  extensity,  the  "  crude  space,"  of  the  image  is,  therefore, 
one  thing,  and  the  real  space  or  place  to  which  the  image,  as  mental 
phenomenon,  may  be  referred,  is  quite  another.  To  confuse  the 
two,  and  to  try  to  thrust  the  image  bodily  into  the  brain,  is  a 
natural  error.  It  is  little  wonder  that  one  who  inspects  Genie  and 
bottle  should  deny  the  possibility  of  the  incarceration  of  the  former 
in  the  latter  without  some  vigorous  process  of  preliminary  con- 
densation. When  one  realizes  that  the  creature  never  was  and 
never  will  be  in  the  bottle,  one  no  longers  feels  under  a  moral 
obligation  to  shrink  him.  Crude  time  and  crude  space  belong  to 
the  subjective  order  ;  we  may  dream  that  years  have  elapsed, 
we  may  imagine  that  we  have  travelled  over  vast  stretches  ;  we 
are  not  compelled  to  find  room  in  real  time  and  space  for  such 
imaginings.  But  if  we  have  really  dreamed  that  years  have 
elapsed,  and  have  really  imagined  these  journeyings,  it  means 
that  these  experiences  do  not  stand  alone,  but  are  in  some  definite 
relation  to  the  real  world,  have  their  place,  in  one  sense  of  the 
word,  if  not  in  another. 

Perhaps  the  reader  will  object  that  I  have  not  definitely  ex- 
plained what  is  meant  by  this  "place."  I  have  in  this  and  in  the 
preceding  chapter  spoken  of  mental  phenomena  as  referred  to  or 
connected  with  the  body,  but  I  have  in  no  case  described  the  nature 


396  Mind  and  Matter 

of  the  connection.  Can  this  not  be  made  plain  ?  If  it  cannot, 
are  we  not  employing  a  meaningless  term,  one  which  merely  serves 
to  conceal  our  ignorance  ? 

To  this  I  answer :  We  have  no  right  to  ask  that  the  relation 
of  mind  and  body  be  explained,  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  term. 
We  have  seen  that  the  interactionist,  in  striving  to  make  it  com- 
prehensible, has  turned  mind  into  a  material  thing,  and  has  assimi- 
lated the  relation  to  other  relations  with  which  we  are  familiar, 
thus  putting  it  into  a  class,  and  relieving  us  of  the  sense  of 
strangeness  which  has  oppressed  us  when  we  have  contemplated 
it.  We  have  seen  also  that  the  parallelist,  although  he  has  detected 
the  error  of  the  interactionist,  has  made  use  of  a  material  analogy 
in  his  figure  of  mind  and  matter  as  parallels,  and  has  unhappily 
taken  another  material  analogy  seriously  when  he  has  attempted 
to  explain  how  it  is  that  mental  phenomena  and  material  phe- 
nomena are  concomitant.  He  has  assimilated  the  relation  to  that 
of  different  qualities  referred  to  one  substance.1  In  each  case,  the 
relation  has  been  explained  by  putting  it  in  the  same  class  with 
certain  other  relations. 

But  it  has,  I 'hope,  been  made  clear  that  all  such  material  analo- 
gies are  vain.  The  relation  of  mind  and  body  is  unique,  and  one 
gains  nothing  by  denying  its  uniqueness.  That  there  is  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  subjective  order  and  the  objective  is  too  plain  to 
be  denied.  That  the  two  orders  are  not  independent  of  each  other, 
but  form  one  system,  must  be  admitted  by  every  one,  explicitly  or 
implicitly.  The  plain  man  loosely  connects  his  mind  and  his  body. 
These  words  have  no  occult  significance  ;  they  sum  up  in  a  sentence 
all  those  experiences  to  which  reference  has  been  made  above,  i.e. 
the  fact  that  when  his  eyes  are  open  he  sees  things,  and  that  when 
they  are  closed  he  does  not  ;  the  fact  that  when  his  ears  are  open 
he  hears  sounds,  and  that  when  they  are  stopped  he  does  not,  etc. 
The  psychologist  relates  mind  and  body  somewhat  more  definitely. 
Here,  again,  nothing  more  is  meant  than  that  just  such  facts 
as  these  are  observed  and  recorded  in  a  more  painstaking  way, 
and  the  parts  of  the  body  concerned  in  the  experiences  are  more 
carefully  determined.  The  whole  body  of  facts  thus  collected  is 
conveniently  symbolized  under  the  figure  of  parallelism,  and  men 
talk  of  a  point-for-point  correspondence,  which  they  are  very  will- 
ing to  admit  they  are  not  in  a  position  to  prove.  But  suppose 

1  See  Chapter  XX. 


The  Time  and  Place  of  Sensations  and  Ideas      397 

that  the  limitations  of  our  knowledge  in  this  direction  were  done 
away.  Suppose  that  the  point-for-point  correspondence  could  be 
proved  in  completest  detail.  What  would  this  mean  ?  It  would 
only  mean  that  very  many  such  facts  as  those  above  referred  to 
were  accurately  known.  Our  knowledge  would  not  differ  in  kind, 
but  in  degree,  from  that  we  now  possess.  Indeed,  it  seems  incon- 
ceivable that  the  utmost  extension  of  our  knowledge  both  of  matter 
and  of  mind  should  explain  the  relation  of  mind  and  matter  as  it 
seems  to  many  desirable  that  it  should  be  explained. 

This  by  no  means  implies  a  defect  in  our  knowledge.  It  does 
not  mean  that  we  are  and  must  remain  ignorant.  If  a  class  of 
facts  is  really  unique,  no  one  is  to  be  pitied  for  his  inability  to  find  a 
broader  class  under  which  he  may  subsume  it,  and  of  which  he  may 
declare  it  a  species.  A  man  may  cry :  Mystery !  if  he  looks  in 
vain  for  something  in  a  place  in  which  it  is  conceivable  that  some- 
thing should  be  found ;  but  he  has  no  right  to  call  it  a  mystery 
that  he  can  discover  nothing  in  a  vacuum,  or  that  he  finds  himself 
unable  to  assign  a  location  to  all  space. 

We  have  seen  1  that  the  word  "  explanation  "  has  its  legitimate 
sphere  of  application,  as  have  other  words.  In  the  present  case, 
the  demand  for  an  explanation  appears  to  arise  out  of  the  fact  that 
mental  phenomena  are  more  or  less  vaguely  materialized.  If  we 
conceive  them  to  be  material,  it  is  not  out  of  place  to  ask  for  an 
explanation  of  their  relations  to  the  body.  In  giving  an  explana- 
tion we  may  try  to  show  definitely  with  just  what  class  of  material 
relations  we  are  concerned,  or  we  may  admit  our  ignorance  and 
wait  for  more  light.  The  problem  becomes  of  the  same  general 
nature  as  that  of  the  relation  of  the  moon  to  the  earth.  But  when 
it  is  realized  that  mental  phenomena  must  not  be  materialized,  the 
case  becomes  very  different.  It  is  seen  that  the  demand  for  an 
explanation  has  arisen  out  of  a  misconception. 

But  if  the  relation  of  mind  and  body  is  so  peculiar  that  I  must 
give  up  all  attempt  to  explain  what  it  is,  am  I  not,  in  speaking  of 
a  "reference  to  the  body,"  a  "relation  to  the  body,"  a  "connec- 
tion with  the  body,''  employing  empty  phrases  which  must  remain 
without  definite  significance  to  myself  and  to  others?  Not  at  all. 
I  may  point  out  in  detail  the  facts  of  experience  which  are  gathered 
up  and  generalized  in  such  expressions.  I  may  call  attention  to 
the  difference  between  the  subjective  order  and  the  objective,  and 

1  Chapter  XV. 


398  Mind  and  Matter 

indicate  the  errors  into  which  men  may  fall  when  they  confuse  the 
two.  I  may  do  everything  save  obliterate  the  distinction  between 
mental  and  material,  by  subsuming  the  former  under  the  latter  or 
the  latter  under  the  former.  In  a  true  sense  of  the  words,  I  may 
explain  what  I  mean  by  the  expressions  I  use,  and  may  even  induce 
men  to  see  the  reasonableness  of  my  doctrine. 

To  hold  clearly  in  mind  all  those  experiences  which  together 
furnish  us  with  the  distinction  of  mind  and  world  is  clearly  impos- 
sible. Some  sort  of  a  symbol,  some  schema,  is  a  necessity,  and 
such  a  schema  is  offered  us  by  the  parallelist.  To  quarrel  with 
what  he  offers  us,  because  his  figure  may  be  misconceived  and 
often  has  been  misconceived,  is  not  worth  while.  The  thing  to  do 
is  to  use  it,  and  to  avoid  being  misled  by  it.  The  totality  of  the 
mental  phenomena  we  commonly  refer  to  a  single  organized  body, 
we  recognize  as  a  mind,  or  a  consciousness.  Whether  more  than 
one  consciousness  may  be  referred  to  one  body,  and  what  may  be 
meant  by  such  a  reference,  are  questions  which  will  have  to  be  dis- 
cussed later.  Meanwhile,  I  shall  merely  remark  that  a  conscious- 
ness is  evidently  not  the  same  thing  as  consciousness,  in  the  broad 
sense  in  which  the  word  has  been  used  in  many  of  the  preceding 
chapters. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

OF   NATURAL  REALISM,   HYPOTHETICAL   REALISM,   IDEALISM 
AND   MATERIALISM 

THE  man  who  has  thought  out  a  philosophical  doctrine  which 
seems  to  him  wholly  new  and  quite  different  from  those  which 
have  been  advocated  by  his  predecessors  may  well  ask  himself 
anxiously  whether  it  would  not  be  well  for  him  to  keep  his  dis- 
covery to  himself.  The  probability  that  all  others  have  been 
sitting  in  total  darkness,  and  that  to  him  alone  a  light  has  been 
revealed,  is  too  small  to  be  seriously  taken  into  consideration. 

But  he  who  has  followed  with  patience  the  reflections  of  the 
minds  which  have  adorned  the  divers  schools  of  philosophic 
thought,  may,  if  he  has  learned  to  resist  the  youthful  impulse 
toward  indiscriminate  admiration  and  sweeping  condemnation, 
hope  to  learn  something  from  the  successes  and  from  the  failures 
of  all.  He  may  see  that  this  one  has  recognized  one  undoubted 
truth,  and  has,  perhaps,  by  that  very  fact  been  led  to  do  scant 
justice  to  another.  He  ma}^  see  that  that  one  has  thereby  been 
stirred  up  to  protest,  and  has  been  betrayed  by  his  zeal  into  the 
converse  error.  If  he  can  devise  some  doctrine  that  seems  to  give 
recognition  to  the  truth  which  has  been  perhaps  unduly  empha- 
sized by  each  school,  and  can  thus  bring  about  something  like  a 
reconciliation  of  the  different  forms  of  opinion,  it  does  not  seem 
unreasonable  for  him  to  set  it  forth.  He  appears  to  find  a  rela- 
tive justification  for  each,  and,  as  he  acknowledges  his  indebted- 
ness to  each,  he  makes  no  preposterous  claim  to  an  abnormal 
originality,  and  does  not  have  to  pose  as  a  creator  out  of  nothing 
of  philosophical  doctrine. 

For  the  doctrine  of  the  world  and  the  mind  set  forth  in  the 
preceding  chapters  I  am  inclined  to  claim  attention  largely  because 
it  is  neither  very  new,  in  its  elements  at  least,  nor  very  startling. 
As  we  have  seen,  it  is  quite  in  harmony  with  truths  which  have 
long  been  recognized  by  the  psychologist.  It  merely  invites  him 

399 


400  Mind  and  Matter 

to  come,  by  a  process  of  reflection,  to  a  clearer  comprehension  of 
their  full  significance,  and  thus  to  escape  from  certain  dangers 
which  menace  him.  In  the  present  chapter  I  wish  to  point  out 
that  it  does  full  justice  to  the  impulse  which  leads  men  to  declare 
themselves  adherents  of  one  or  another  of  certain  leading  schools 
of  philosophy,  and  makes  it  quite  comprehensible  that  such  schools 
should  have  arisen.  I  shall  begin  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Natural 
Realists. 

The  man  of  whom  we  most  naturally  think  when  we  employ 
this  term  is  Thomas  Reid.  The  term  is,  to  be  sure,  a  "  question- 
begging"  epithet,  and  may  be  misleading,  for,  although  it  is 
natural  for  a  man  like  Reid  —  a  man  gifted  with  robust  common 
sense  but  not  born  for  metaphysical  analysis  —  to  think,  under 
some  circumstances,  as  Reid  did ;  yet  it  is  equally  natural  for  an 
acuter  mind  to  repudiate  this  philosophy  and  embrace  another. 
To  Reid  himself  his  doctrine  was  the  philosophy  of  Common 
Sense,  and  his  appeal  is  everywhere  from  the  perverted  ingenuity 
of  the  philosopher  to  the  robust  judgment  of  the  plain  man.  It 
is  eminently  natural  to  be  a  plain  man  before  one  has  learned  to 
be  something  better,  and  the  mass  of  mankind  have  always  been, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  metaphysician,  plain  men.  There  is 
no  serious  objection  to  applying  the  title  Natural  Realism  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  "  natural  man,"  but  one  must  bear  in  mind  that 
the  individual  thus  indicated  is  not  thereby  made  the  subject  of 
unqualified  praise. 

At  one  time  Reid  regarded  himself  as  the  disciple  of  Berkeley, 
the  idealist.  But  the  consequences  that  David  Hume  seemed 
logically  to  deduce  from  the  principles  laid  down  by  his  prede- 
cessor aroused  in  Reid  a  lively  discontent.  A  general  scepticism 
by  no  means  suited  the  temper  of  his  mind ;  he  was  unwilling  to 
regard  human  knowledge  as  limited  wholly  to  "  impressions  "  and 
"  ideas,"  and  he  cast  about  for  some  means  of  egress  from  the 
unsubstantial  prison  which  shut  him  in.  An  external  world  he 
must  have,  and  a  soul  not  to  be  confounded  with  a  "bundle  of 
perceptions."  The  door  which  he  sought  for  he  found  in  the 
discovery  that  his  predecessors,  Descartes,  Malebranche,  Locke, 
Berkeley,  and  Hume,  all  based  their  reasonings  upon  an  erroneous 
hypothesis,  the  hypothesis  "that  nothing  is  perceived  but  what  is 
in  the  mind  which  perceives  it."  Once  grant  this  hypothesis,  and 
all  is  lost:  "Bishop  Berkeley  hath  proved,  beyond  the  possibility 


Some  Theories  of  Mind  and  World  401 

of  reply,  that  we  cannot  by  reasoning  infer  the  existence  of  matter 
from  our  sensations ;  and  the  author  of  the  '  Treatise  of  Human 
Nature  '  hath  proved  no  less  clearly,  that  we  cannot  by  reasoning 
infer  the  existence  of  our  own  or  other  minds  from  our  sensations."  * 

The  world  and  the  mind,  then,  must  be  saved  by  a  return  to 
common  sense.  The  plain  man  knows  very  well  that  he  not  only 
perceives  sensations  but  perceives  things.  He  knows  that,  in  order 
to  perceive  things,  he  must  have  sensations,  but  he  does  not  con- 
found the  two,  and  realizes  that  they  are  quite  unlike.  The 
distinction  between  the  two  may  be  made  clear  by  a  little  reflec- 
tion, and  it  may  also  be  made  clear  that  our  knowledge  of  the 
world  is  not  the  result  of  a  process  of  inference  :  — 

"  The  notion  of  extension  is  so  familiar  to  us  from  infancy,  and 
so  constantly  obtruded  by  everything  we  see  and  feel,  that  we  are 
apt  to  think  it  obvious  how  it  comes  into  the  mind ;  but  upon  a 
narrower  examination  we  shall  find  it  utterly  inexplicable.  It  is 
true  we  have  feelings  of  touch,  which  every  moment  present  exten- 
sion to  the  mind ;  but  how  they  come  to  do  so  is  the  question ;  for 
those  feelings  do  no  more  resemble  extension  than  they  resemble 
justice  or  courage  —  nor  can  the  existence  of  extended  things  be 
inferred  from  those  feelings  by  any  rules  of  reasoning ;  so  that  the 
feelings  we  have  by  touch  can  neither  explain  how  we  get  the 
notion,  nor  how  we  come  by  the  belief  of  extended  things. 

"  What  hath  imposed  upon  philosophers  in  this  matter  is,  that  the 
feelings  of  touch,  which  suggest  primary  qualities,  have  no  names, 
nor  are  they  ever  reflected  upon.  They  pass  through  the  mind 
instantaneously,  and  serve  only  to  introduce  the  notion  and  belief 
of  external  things,  which,  by  our  constitution,  are  connected  with 
them.  They  are  natural  signs,  and  the  mind  immediately  passes  to 
the  thing  signified,  without  making  the  least  reflection  upon  the  sign, 
or  observing  that  there  was  any  such  thing.  Hence  it  hath  always 
been  taken  for  granted  that  the  ideas  of  extension,  figure,  and 
motion  are  ideas  of  sensation,  which  enter  into  the  mind  by  the 
sense  of  touch,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  sensations  of  sound  and 
smell  do  by  the  ear  and  nose.  The  sensations  of  touch  are  so  con- 
nected, by  our  constitution,  with  the  notions  of  extension,  figure, 
and  motion,  that  philosophers  have  mistaken  the  one  for  the  other, 
and  never  have  been  able  to  discern  that  they  were  not  only  dis- 
tinct things,  but  altogether  unlike.  However,  if  we  will  reason 
1 "  An  Inquiry  into  the  Human  Mind,"  Chapter  V,  §  7. 


402  Mind  and  Matter 

distinctly  upon  this  subject,  we  ought  to  give  names  to  those  feel- 
ings of  touch ;  we  must  accustom  ourselves  to  attend  to  them,  and 
to  reflect  upon  them,  that  we  may  be  able  to  disjoin  them  from,  and 
to  compare  them  with,  the  qualities  signified  or  suggested  by  them. 

"  The  habit  of  doing  this  is  not  to  be  attained  without  pains 
and  practice;  and  till  a  man  hath  acquired  this  habit,  it  will  be 
impossible  for  him  to  think  distinctly,  or  to  judge  right,  upon  this 
subject. 

"  Let  a  man  press  his  hand  against  the  table  —  lie  feels  it  hard. 
But  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  ?  —  The  meaning  undoubtedly  is, 
that  he  hath  a  certain  feeling  of  touch,  from  which  he  concludes, 
without  any  reasoning,  or  comparing  ideas,  that  there  is  something 
external  really  existing,  whose  parts  stick  so  firmly  together  that 
they  cannot  be  displaced  without  considerable  force. 

"  There  is  here  a  feeling,  and  a  conclusion  drawn  from  it,  or 
some  way  suggested  by  it.  In  order  to  compare  these,  we  must 
view  them  separately,  and  then  consider  by  what  tie  they  are  con- 
nected, and  wherein  they  resemble  one  another.  The  hardness  of 
the  table  is  the  conclusion,  the  feeling  is  the  medium  by  which  we 
are  led  to  that  conclusion.  Let  a  man  attend  distinctly  to  this 
medium,  and  to  the  conclusion,  and  he  will  perceive  them  to  be  as 
unlike  as  any  two  things  in  nature.  The  one  is  a  sensation  of  the 
mind\  which  can  have  no  existence  but  in  a  sentient  being;  nor 
cant-it  exist  one  moment  longer  than  it  is  felt ;  the  other  is  in  the 
table,  and  we  conclude,  without  any  difficulty,  that  it  was  in  the 
table  before  it  was  felt,  and  continues  after  the  feeling  is  over. 
The  one  implies  no  kind  of  extension,  nor  parts,  nor  cohesion  ;  the 
other  implies  all  these.  Both,  indeed,  admit  of  degrees,  and  the 
feeling,  beyond  a  certain  degree,  is  a  species  of  pain ;  but  adaman- 
tine hardness  does  not  imply  the  least  pain. 

"  And  as  the  feeling  hath  no  similitude  to  hardness,  so  neither 
can  our  reason  perceive  the  least  tie  or  connection  between  them ; 
nor  will  the  logician  ever  be  able  to  show  a  reason  why  we  should 
conclude  hardness  from  this  feeling,  rather  than  softness,  or  any 
other  quality  whatsoever.  But,  in  reality,  all  mankind  are  led  by 
their  constitution  to  conclude  hardness  from  this  feeling."1 

I  have  taken  this  long  extract  from  Reid  because  it  admirably 
illustrates  both  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  appeal  to  com- 
mon sense.  I  might  almost  as  well  have  chosen  any  one  from  a 
1  "  Inquiry,"  Chapter  V,  §  5. 


Some  Theories  of  Mind  and  World  403 

multitude  of  others,  for  Reid  is  consistently  inconsistent,  and  hugs 
the  shore  rather  closely.  But  the  passage  I  have  taken  is  at  least 
as  good  as  any,  and  presents  a  curious  combination  of  truth  and 
error. 

As  for  the  truths  which  it  recognizes :  we  notice,  in  the  first 
place,  that  it  does  not  overlook  the  fact  that  extension  is  presented 
to  the  mind  in  feelings  of  touch.  In  the  preceding  pages  I  have 
tried  to  make  clear  what  must  be  meant  by  all  such  statements  as 
this.  They  may  be  misunderstood,  but  they  undoubtedly  contain 
an  important  truth. 

Again,  too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  laid  upon  the  fact  that  the 
feelings  of  touch  "  pass  through  the  mind  instantaneously,  and 
serve  only  to  introduce  the  notion  and  belief  of  external  things." 
This  is  a  recognition  of  the  truth  that  our  experiences  seem  to  fall 
most  naturally  into  the  objective  order,  when  they  are  of  such  a 
kind  that  they  may  take  their  place  in  the  objective  order;  and  a 
recognition  also  of  the  truth  that  the  phenomena  of  the  objective 
order  stand  out  before  the  attention  in  a  peculiarly  vivid  way.  It 
is  not  eas}7-  to  represent  clearly  to  the  mind  what  we  mean  by  sen- 
sations, as  sensations.  Just  for  this  reason  have  psychologist  and 
philosopher  been  misled  into  talking  about  mental  phenomena  in 
the  incoherent  fashion  with  which  we  are  all  familiar.  Had  Reid 
recognized  this  truth  even  more  clearly  he  might  have  hesitated  to 
speak  of  sensations  in  the  dogmatic  way  that  is  characteristic  of 
him.  It  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that,  because  a  man  has  sen- 
sations, he  is  able  to  describe  them  accurately,  or  even  to  avoid 
saying  about  them  what  a  careful  analysis  shows  to  be  not  merely 
untrue,  but  even  highly  absurd. 

In  the  third  place,  we  find  some  justice  done  to  the  statement 
that,  when  a  man  presses  his  hand  against  the  table,  he  feels  it 
hard.  Reid's  plea  is  for  a  recognition  of  the  immediacy  of  this 
knowledge.  When  I  press  my  hand  against  the  table,  I  know  it  to 
be  hard  "  without  any  reasoning,  or  comparing  ideas."  No  man, 
who  comes  back  to  the  experience  which  stirred  Reid  to  protest, 
can  avoid  a  certain  sympathy  with  his  words.  Here  I  sit  before 
my  desk  ;  I  see  it ;  I  feel  it.  The  desk  seems  to  be  known, 
and  immediately  known,  in  such  experiences.  I  perceive  the 
desk  to  be  extended,  to  be  hard.  Am  I  to  be  told  that  what  I 
perceive  is  not  a  desk  at  all,  but,  so  to  speak,  a  miniature  copy? 
Am  I  to  believe  that  it  is  not  where  it  seems  to  be,  out  in  front  of 


404  Mind  and  Matter 

my  body  in  space,  but  is,  instead,  perhaps  in  my  brain,  perhaps 
nowhere  in  particular?  Am  I  to  weakly  assent  to  the  prepos- 
terous statement  that  what  I  seem  to  perceive  as  extended  is 
not  really  extended,  that  what  I  seem  to  perceive  as  hard  is  not 
really  hard?  Clear  your  mind  of  the  imaginings  of  the  phi- 
losophers, exercise  ordinary  common  sense,  look  at  this  desk  and 
lay  your  hand  on  it.  You  are  conscious  of  sensations,  of  course, 
but  are  you  ever  really  tempted  to  confound  them  with  the  desk  ? 
Do  you  not  feel  now,  at  this  moment,  that  this  desk  is  hard  and 
extended  —  not  an  uncertain  and  hypothetical  desk  whose  exist- 
ence is  inferred  from  the  presence  of  this  one  —  but  this  very 
desk  ? 

In  the  doctrine  which  I  have  presented  in  this  volume  full 
justice  is  done  to  Reid's  insistence  that  our  knowledge  of  things 
and  their  qualities  is  not  a  mere  knowledge  of  images  and  copies, 
but  really  a  knowledge  of  the  things  themselves.  Indeed,  as  we 
shall  see  a  little  later,  Reid's  intention  was  better  than  his  execu- 
tion, and  he  might  profitably  have  gone  a  little  farther  than  he 
did.  But  what  he  meant  to  do  is  sufficiently  plain,  notwith- 
standing his  inconsistencies  of  expression ;  he  meant  to  insist 
that  we  do  not  first  know  sensations  and  then  infer  the  existence 
of  things  and  their  qualities  from  these  sensations.  He  meant  to 
deny  the  doctrine  of  representative  perception.  In  this  he  was 
justified. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  the 
truth  that  the  man  who  once  consistently  shuts  himself  up  in 
the  charmed  circle  of  "  impressions "  and  "  ideas "  can  never 
logically  issue  from  that  circle.  A  world  truly  external  can 
never  be  known  to  him ;  and  as  there  is  to  him  no  "  external " 
there  can  be  no  contrasted  "internal."  In  other  words,  impres- 
sions and  ideas  can  only  be  impressions  and  ideas  to  a  man  who 
recognizes  a  real  world  with  which  they  stand  contrasted.  There 
can  be  no  subjective  without  an  objective.  It  is  because  men 
are  inconsistent  that  they  seem  able  to  keep  such  distinctions 
when  they  have  really  obliterated  them.  It  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  recognize  that  the  objective  order  of  experience 
is  as  immediately  known  as  the  subjective  order.  This  desk  as 
"thing"  is  not  known  as  the  result  of  an  inference  from  a  group 
of  sensations,  for  the  sensations  are  only  known,  as  sensations, 
when  they  are  contrasted  with  a  world  of  things.  The  Natural 


Some  Theories  of  Mind  and  World  405 

Realist  is,  then,  entirely  in  the  right,  when  he  insists  that  we 
must  not  regard  the  sensations  as  known  immediately  and  the 
real  things  to  which  we  refer  them  as  known  at  one  remove. 

In  the  fourth  place,  we  should  notice,  that  Reid  distinguishes, 
as  he  should,  between  sensations  and  the  qualities  of  external 
things.  We  have  seen  that  they  are  not  to  be  confounded.  Ex- 
periences recognized  as  having  their  place  in  the  subjective  order 
are  sensations,  and  recognized  as  having  their  place  in  the  objec- 
tive order  are  the  qualities  of  things.  They  are  not  to  be  treated 
alike ;  a  truth  which  Reid  recognizes  in  the  statement  that  they 
differ  as  widely  "as  any  two  things  in  nature,"  and  in  denying 
to  the  sensation  extension,  parts,  and  cohesion.  In  this  we  may 
cheerfully  follow  him,  merely  stopping  to  point  out  why  it  is 
that  we  may  not  ascribe  space-relations  to  mental  phenomena  in 
any  literal  sense  of  the  words.  We  may  yield  the  same  willing 
assent  to  his  statement  that  the  sensation  can  exist  only  so  long 
as  it  is  felt,  but  that  the  quality  of  the  table  may  exist  before  it 
is  felt,  and  continue  to  exist  after  the  feeling  is  over.  This 
merely  means  that  existence  in  the  objective  order  is  not  to  be 
confounded  with  existence  in  the  subjective,  a  truth  which  is 
more  or  less  clearly  recognized  by  every  one  who  has  arrived  at 
the  distinction  between  sensations  and  things. 

It  is  evident  from  the  foregoing  that  Reid  had  laid  hold  of  a 
good  many  of  the  distinctions  which  have  been  discussed  in  the 
preceding  chapters.  This  is  scarcely  surprising,  for  those  dis- 
tinctions are  implicit  in  the  thought  of  the  natural  man,  and 
are  recognized  in  a  way  even  by  common  sense.  But  common 
sense  is  a  poor  staff  to  lean  upon  in  the  long  journey  which 
has  to  be  made  by  the  metaphysician.  It  is  impossible  to  read 
the  extract  which  we  have  been  discussing  without  discovering 
that  Reid's  thought  was  far  from  clear  and  far  from  consistent. 
He  vigorously  opposed  the  doctrine  of  representative  perception, 
3*et  the  doctrine  with  which  he  would  replace  it  seems  so  curi- 
ously like  it,  that  it  is  possible  for  his  sympathetic  editor,  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  to  maintain  that  he  was  not  a  Natural  Realist 
at  all.  It  seems,  however,  more  just  to  allow  him  the  title,  for 
his  very  inconsistency  gives  him  a  peculiar  right  to  stand  as  the 
representative  of  the  natural  man,  who  is  repelled  by  the  doctrine 
of  representative  perception  as  it  has  been  worked  out  with  of- 
fensive completeness  by  the  philosopher,  and  who  insists  that  he 


406  .    Mind  and  Matter 

really  knows  external  things,  but  can  give  no  very  articulate 
account  of  what  he  means  by  his  statement. 

We  have  heard  Reid  tell  us  that  feelings  of  touch  at  every 
moment  "  present  extension  to  the  mind,"  but  before  he  has  finished 
his  paragraph  we  discover  that  it  is  not  really  extension  that  is 
presented  to  the  mind  but  the  notion  of  extension,  and  the  belief 
that  there  exist  extended  things.  This  is  reiterated  in  the  follow- 
ing paragraph,  where  we  are  told  that  the  feelings  of  touch  "  serve 
only  to  introduce  the  notion  and  belief  of  external  things,  which, 
by  our  constitution,  are  connected  with  them."  The  "ideas  of 
extension,  figure,  and  motion  "  are  expressly  recognized,  and  Reid's 
only  concern  appears  to  be  to  insist  that  these  ideas  or  notions 
are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  sensations  of  touch,  and  are 
to  be  recognized  as  quite  unlike  them. 

At  once  we  are  impelled  to  ask :  Are  these  ideas  or  notions  of 
extension,  figure,  and  motion  to  be  regarded  as  external?  are  they 
identical  with  the  extensions,  figures,  and  motions  of  the  external 
world  ?  The  question  finds  its  answer  in  the  mere  fact  that  the 
words  "idea"  and  "notion  "  are  used  at  all.  The  hardness  of  the 
table  pressed  against  is  surely  neither  "  idea,"  "  notion  "  nor  "  be- 
lief." These  terms  Reid  would  himself  have  been  willing  to  rec- 
ognize as  standing  for  something  "  which  can  have  no  existence, 
save  in  a  sentient  being." 

We  appear,  then,  to  have  to  do,  not  merely  with  sensations 
and  external  qualities,  but  with  sensations,  ideas,  or  notions  of 
external  qualities,  and  external  qualities  themselves.  That  in 
passing  from  sensations  to  the  notion  and  belief  one  makes  a 
transition,  Reid  admits  when  he  distinguishes  them  as  sign  and 
thing  signified ;  but  he  appears  quite  to  overlook  the  fact  that 
in  passing  from  the  notion  and  belief  to  the  external  thing  he 
is  making  still  another  transition.  He  simply  ignores  the  dis- 
tinction emphasized  by  the  advocate  of  the  doctrine  of  representa- 
tive perception.  It  is  not  that  he  has  bridged  the  gulf  between 
thoughts  and  things,  or  in  any  way  indicated  what  may  be  meant 
by  a  knowledge  of  things.  He  has  simply  assumed  that  in  having 
the  notion  and  belief  he  has  the  thing,  and  he  throws  the  onus 
prolandi  upon  his  "constitution." 

But,  notwithstanding  Reid's  anxiety  to  arrive  at  external  things 
"  without  any  reasoning,  or  comparing  ideas,"  he  has  an  uneasy 
consciousness  that  his  knowledge  of  things  is  not  immediate.  He 


Some  Theories  of  Mind  and  World  407 

cannot  wholly  overlook  the  fact,  recognized  clearly  enough  by  the 
plain  man,  that  he  would  not  know  things  if  he  had  no  sensations. 
The  sensation  seems  to  him  to  be  a  starting-point,  the  thing  to 
be  a  terminus.  He  concludes  that  there  is  something  external ; 
the  conclusion  is  drawn  from  the  feeling  "  or  in  some  way  suggested 
by  it " ;  the  feeling  is  the  medium  by  which  we  are  led  to  the 
conclusion.  It  is  true  that  the  existence  of  external  things  cannot 
be  inferred  from  the  feelings  of  touch  "  by  any  rules  of  reasoning," 
but  men  are  impelled  to  make  just  such  inferences  by  their  nature 
or  constitution,  and  are  under  no  obligation  to  justify  them  by 
reasoning.1 

It  is  unnecessary  to  heap  together  a  multitude  of  such  expres- 
sions as  these.  They  are  scattered  all  over  Reid's  pages,  and 
they  abundantly  prove  that  he  did  not  completely  confound  the 
idea  or  notion  of  extension  with  extension  itself.  It  does  not 
sound  nonsensical  to  state  that  the  existence  of  extended  things 
cannot  be  inferred  from  feelings  of  touch  —  to  many  men  it  has 
seemed  that  the  existence  of  such  things  is  a  legitimate  subject 
of  doubt.  But  it  seems  quite  gratuitous  to  discuss  whether  the 
existence  of  the  idea  of  extension  may  be  inferred  from  sensations. 
Neither  Descartes,  nor  Locke,  nor  Hume,  nor  any  one  else  whom 
Reid  was  anxious  to  refute,  ever  dreamt  of  denying  such  an 
existence.  What  Reid  wanted  to  establish  was  the  existence  of 
external  things,  not  the  existence  of  the  ideas  of  such  or  of  beliefs 
in  such.  It  is  everywhere  evident  in  his  pages  that,  although  he 
slurs  over  the  distinction  between  ideas  and  things,  he  does  not 
completely  discard  it,  and  also  that  he  finds  in  ideas,  indorsed  by 
our  "  constitution,"  a  guarantee  of  the  existence  of  things,  an 
existence  which  is  thus  admitted  not  to  be  known  immediately. 
There  is  really  very  little  difference  between  the  Cartesian  doc- 
trine that  the  existence  of  an  external  world  is  only  assured  to 
us  by  the  fact  that  a  good  God  would  not  deceive  us,  and  the 
doctrine  of  Reid,  which  finds  the  guarantee  in  our  constitution. 
In  either  case  one  is  taking  the  word  of  another  for  what  is  not 
self-evident. 

It  is  peculiarly  interesting  to  note  how  a  man  who  has  begun 

with  an   energetic  protest  against  the  doctrine  of  representative 

perception  has  a  tendency  to  slip  into  some  form  of  that  doctrine 

when  he  attempts  to  define  and  defend  his  own.     This  is  precisely 

1  "  Inquiry,"  Chapter  II,  §  1. 


408  Mind  and  Matter 

what  we  might  expect.  The  natural  man  believes  that  he  per- 
ceives things,  it  is  true,  but  he  also  recognizes  that  he  has  ideas, 
and  believes  that  his  ideas  in  some  way  represent  things.  How 
easy  it  is  for  him  to  be  led  to  emphasize  this  aspect  of  his  beliefs 
becomes  evident  when  we  see  him  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  psy- 
chologist. He  experiences  no  shock  when  he  is  informed  that 
a  mind  can  know  no  more  of  the  external  world  than  is  contained 
in  the  messages  conducted  to  the  brain  along  the  sensory  nerves. 
It  is  only  when  the  consequences  of  such  a  doctrine  are  rigorously 
deduced  and  exhibited  to  him,  and  when  he  feels  himself  in  danger 
of  losing  an  external  world  altogether,  that  his  mind  revolts.  Reid 
is  with  him,  heart  and  soul.  We  must  not  deny  that  he  is  a  Nat- 
ural Realist  because  he  arrives  at  an  external  world  by  inference. 
That  is  but  one  aspect  of  his  doctrine.  Natural  Realism  contains 
all  sorts  of  truths  and  all  sorts  of  errors.  It  is  not,  properly  speak- 
ing, a  philosophy,  but  rather  the  raw  materials  out  of  which  a 
philosophy  must  be  made.  It  is  the  position  of  the  plain  man  — 
the  position  from  which  we  must  all  set  out  when  we  enter  upon 
the  path  of  reflection ;  unless,  indeed,  we  adopt  some  ready-made 
philosophy,  and  prefer  riding  on  another  man's  back  to  exercising 
our  own  legs.  And  even  then  we  can  scarcely  avoid  putting  a 
foot  to  the  ground  from  time  to  time. 

But  though  Natural  Realism  may  serve  its  purpose  as  a  point 
of  departure,  it  is  no  place  to  take  up  one's  lodging.  One  does 
not  go  to  the  station  to  sit  indefinitely  upon  its  benches.  It  is  mel- 
ancholy to  think  with  what  high  purposes  Thomas  Reid  set  him- 
self to  work,  and  how  little  he  has  done  to  throw  light  on  any  of 
those  dark  places  which  we  are  all  anxious  to  see  illumined.  Let 
the  following  passage  stand  as  a  warning  to  those  who  lounge  at 
the  station:  — 

"  Pei'ception,  as  we  here  understand  it,  hath  always  an  object 
distinct  from  the  act  by  which  it  is  perceived ;  an  object  which 
may  exist  whether  it  be  perceived  or  not.  I  perceive  a  tree  that 
grows  before  my  window;  there  is  here  an  object  which  is  per- 
ceived, and  an  act  of  the  mind  by  which  it  is  perceived  ;  and  these 
two  are  not  only  distinguishable,  but  they  are  extremely  unlike  in 
their  natures.  The  object  is  made  up  of  a  trunk,  branches,  and 
leaves ;  but  the  act  of  the  mind  by  which  it  is  perceived  hath 
neither  trunk,  branches,  nor  leaves.  I  am  conscious  of  this  act  of 
my  mind,  and  I  can  reflect  upon  it;  but  it  is  too  simple  to  admit  of 


Some  Theories  of  Mind  and  World  409 

an  analysis,  and  I  cannot  find  proper  words  to  describe  it.  I  find 
nothing  that  resembles  it  so  much  as  the  remembrance  of  the  tree, 
or  the  imagination  of  it.  Yet  both  these  differ  essentially  from 
perception ;  they  differ  likewise  one  from  another.  It  is  in  vain 
that  a  philosopher  assures  me,  that  the  imagination  of  the  tree,  the 
remembrance  of  it,  and  the  perception  of  it,  are  all  one,  and  differ 
only  in  degree  of  vivacity.  I  know  the  contrary ;  for  I  am  as  well 
acquainted  with  all  the  three  as  I  am  with  the  apartments  of  my 
own  house.  I  know  this  also,  that  the  perception  of  an  object 
implies  both  a  conception  of  its  form  and  a  belief  of  its  present 
existence.  I  know,  moreover,  that  this  belief  is  not  the  effect 
of  argumentation  and  reasoning;  it  is  the  immediate  effect  of 
my  constitution."  l 

In  this  passage  Reid  makes  a  distinction,  as  he  should,  between 
percept  and  thing.  But  is  it  possible  to  leave  the  nature  of  the 
percept,  and  the  nature  of  its  relation  to  the  thing,  more  absolutely 
obscure  than  Reid  has  left  them?  The  tree  has  trunk,  branches, 
and  leaves ;  the  percept  has  not.  The  percept  does  not  resemble 
the  tree,  but  it  does  resemble  the  remembrance  of  the  tree,  or  the 
imagination  of  the  tree.  But  do  not  trees  pictured  in  the  imagi- 
nation appear  to  have  trunk,  branches,  and  leaves  ?  and  is  not  the 
tree  perceived  —  not  the  one  suggested,  inferred,  or  believed  in  —  is 
not  this  tree  as  composite  as  it  seems  to  be  ?  Alas  !  these  things 
cannot  be  as  they  seem,  for  they  are  "  acts  of  the  mind,"  too  simple 
to  admit  of  analysis ;  and  we  must  not  attempt  to  describe  them, 
but  must  confine  ourselves  to  denying  that  they  in  any  way  resemble 
external  things. 

It  is  clear  that  anything  like  a  science  of  psychology  is  impos- 
sible where  mental  phenomena  are  consistently  treated  as  unan- 
alyzable  and  indescribable.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  science  of 
psychology  has  deliberately  set  aside  Reid's  doctrine,  and  has 
furnished  an  analysis  of  the  percept,  finding  it  composite,  distin- 
guishing its  elements,  referring  this  to  the  sense  and  that  to  the 
imagination.  It  has  made  it  quite  comprehensible  that  the  per- 
cept of  a  tree  should  represent  a  tree  and  not  represent  "  justice 
or  courage."  And  when  the  psychologist  recognizes  that  a  given 
experience,  in  order  to  be  classed  as  subjective,  must  be  denied 
real  extension  and  a  position  in  real  space,  but  must  not  on  that 
account  be  robbed  of  its  own  nature  as  revealed  in  consciousness, 

!"  Inquiry,"  Chapter  VI,  §  20. 


410  Mind  and  Matter 

then  he  is  even  justified  in  saying  that  the  percept  of  a  tree  re- 
sembles a  real  tree  as  it  does  not  resemble  justice  or  courage. 

In  one  respect  Reid's  doctrine  seems  to  leave  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  perception  even  more  obscure  than  it  is  to  the  mind  of  the 
plain  man  when  he  is  let  alone  by  the  philosopher.  To  genuine 
common  sense  it  does  not  seem  wholly  incomprehensible  that 
ideas  should  represent  things,  for,  after  all,  ideas  seem  to  have 
some  resemblance  to  things.  The  house  that  is  imagined  is  not 
an  external  thing,  but  it  certainly  seems  to  have  roof  and  walls, 
windows  and  doors,  and  in  all  these  respects  to  be  like  a  real 
house  —  at  least  something  like  a  real  house.  But  with  Reid  the 
denial  of  resemblance  is  complete,  and  it  becomes  inconceivable 
that  such  a  thing  as  the  percept  should  even  "  suggest "  a  house. 

If  it  remains  obscure  to  the  plain  man  what  is  meant,  in  gen- 
eral, by  the  statement  that  ideas  represent  things,  the  obscurity 
is  certainly  not  relieved  by  giving  such  an  account  of  ideas  that  it 
becomes  inconceivable  that  any  particular  idea  should  represent  any 
particular  thing  better  than  any  other.  Under  such  circumstances 
it  becomes  quite  hopeless  to  attempt  to  make  anything  clear ;  one 
is  reduced  to  sheer  dogmatism,  to  mere  asseveration :  "  I  know  this 
also,  that  the  perception  of  an  object  implies  both  a  conception  of 
its  form  and  a  belief  of  its  present  existence."  What  is  this  per- 
ception like?  How  is  one  to  think  of  it?  It  cannot  be  described. 
What  does  it  mean  to  say  that  it  resembles  imagination  ?  The 
statement  cannot  be  made  clearer,  it  can  only  be  repeated.  What 
does  it  signify  to  say  that  the  perception  implies  this  or  that?  No 
answer  is  forthcoming.  What  is  the  conception  of  the  form  of  the 
object  ?  Has  it  itself  any  form  ?  Is  it  extended  ?  Or  is  it  an 
unanalyzable  and  part-less  thing  like  the  percept?  Does  it 
"  imply  "  the  object  as  the  percept  appears  to  "  imply  "  it  ?  And 
what  is  meant  by  belief?  When  are  beliefs  reasonable,  and  when 
unreasonable?  Finally,  is  it  possible  to  point  out  at  all  clearly 
what  is  meant  by  the  words  present  existence? 

To  none  of  these  questions  does  "  our  constitution  "  even  make 
a  pretence  of  furnishing  an  answer.  It  appears  to  be  its  function 
to  lead  us  to  string  together  into  sentences  words  which  have  to 
us  no  definite  meaning,  and  to  defend  stubbornly  the  sentences 
thus  constructed  against  all  the  assaults  of  reflection. 

It  is  clear  that  it  was  not  necessary  for  Reid  to  take  refuge  in 
mere  dogmatism.  He  might  have  defended  the  external  world 


Some  Theories  of  Mind  and  World  411 

intelligently,  by  undertaking  a  careful  analysis  of  experience,  and 
by  pointing  out  the  real  difference  between  sensations  and  things. 
That  he  was  justified  in  making  a  protest,  and  the  particular 
nature  of  the  misconceptions  into  which  he  was  betrayed,  seem  to 
be  revealed  with  some  clearness  in  the  light  of  the  doctrine  which 
has  been  advocated  in  the  preceding  chapters.  We  see  that  we 
cannot  wholly  condemn  Reid,  and  we  also  see  that  we  cannot 
frankly  justifjr  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  admit  a  relative  justification  also 
to  those  whose  position  he  so  vigorously  opposed.  We  have  seen 
how  Reid  tended  to  slip  unconsciously  into  the  form  of  doctrine 
which  was  the  object  of  his  attack.  This  is  condemned  by  his 
editor,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  as  a  weakness  unworthy  of  him, 
and  it  is  insisted  that  we  must  hold  to  a  Natural  Realism  of  a 
purer  type.  Yet  the  careful  reader  of  Sir  William's  works  dis- 
covers that  the  doctrine  actually  held  by  the  latter  is,  after  all,  a 
doctrine  of  representative  perception.  Existence  "as  it  is  in  it- 
self" is  carefully  distinguished  from  existence  "as  it  is  revealed 
to  us  " ;  man  is  a  creature  that  inspects,  not  things,  but  the  pic- 
tures of  things  —  rerumque  ignarus,  imagine  gaudet.1  It  is  wonder- 
fully easy  to  adopt  this  doctrine,  as  innumerable  psychologists 
and  psychologies  bear  witness.  To  condemn  it  as  mere  error  is 
unwise,  for,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  at  bottom  a  recognition  of  the 
undoubted  truth  that  every  element  of  experience  may  take  its 
place  in  the  subjective  order. 

I  need  not  here  dwell  upon  the  position  of  the  psychologist, 
for  that  has  been  done  sufficiently  already.  It  is  a  dual  position, 
and  while  it  insists  upon  giving  to  the  subjective  order  its  rights," 
it  saves  itself  by  tacitly  recognizing,  as  Reid  tried  explicitly  to 
recognize,  the  fact  that  we  have  an  experience  of  things.  It  is 
only  the  philosopher,  who  emphasizes  one  of  the  aspects  of  truth 
recognized  by  the  plain  man  at  the  expense  of  another,  who  is 
driven  to  strange  devices  to  secure  a  dubious  right  to  believe  in 
a  shadowy  external  world. 

And  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  even  the  philosopher  cannot 
wholly  put  off  humanity,  and  must  involuntarily  take  his  place 
from  time  to  time  beside  Reid.  "  I  have  often  remarked,  in  many 
instances,"  wriias  Descartes^"  that  there  is  a  great  difference 

between  an  pbiect)  and  its  idea/' 2     Strange  that  he  should  have 
vv]y  V_- 

1  "Lectures  On  Metaphysics,"  VIII.  2  Meditation  Troisieme. 


412  Mind  and  Matter 

remarked  this,  when  he  has  all  his  life  perceived  nothing  but 
ideas !  "  Thus  I  see,  whilst  I  write  this,"  says  Locke,  "  I  can 
change  the  appearance  of  the  paper,  and  by  designing  the  letters 
tell  beforehand  what  new  idea  it  shall  exhibit  the  very  next 
moment,  by  barely  drawing  my  pen  over  it,  which  will  neither 
appear  (let  me  fancy  as  much  as  I  will),  if  my  hands  stand  still, 
or  though  I  move  my  pen,  if  my  eyes  be  shut;  nor,  when  those 
characters  are  once  made  on  the  paper,  can  I  choose  afterward 
but  see  them  as  they  are :  that  is,  have  the  ideas  of  such  letters 
as  I  have  made.  Whence  it  is  manifest,  that  they  are  not  barely 
the  sport  and  play  of  my  own  imagination,  when  I  find  that  the 
characters  that  were  made  at  the  pleasure  of  my  own  thought  do 
not  obey  them ;  nor  yet  cease  to  be,  whenever  I  shall  fancy  it ; 
but  continue  to  affect  the  senses  constantly  and  regularly,  accord- 
ing to  the  figures  I  made  them." l 

These  sentences  might  have  been  penned  by  Reid.  They  are 
an  unconscious  tribute  to  the  doctrine,  implicit  in  common  thought, 
that  our  knowledge  of  an  external  world  is  as  direct  and  immediate 
as  our  knowledge  of  an  internal.  So  I  feel  myself  justified  in 
claiming  both  Descartes  and  Locke,  as  well  as  Reid,  to  be  wit- 
nesses to  the  truth  of  the  theory  which  I  advocate.  I  can  do  this 
with  the  better  conscience,  as  I  have  no  objection  to  their  holding 
still  to  their  doctrine  of  representative  perception  —  in  a  modified 
form,  i.e.  in  such  a  form  as  not  to  make  it  incredible  that  any  one 
should  ever  arrive  at  the  notion  of  an  external  world  at  all. 

As  for  the  Idealist,  it  is  clear  that  he  is  in  the  same  toils  as  the 
Hypothetical  Realist.  He  marks  the  fact  that  every  experience 
can  take  its  place  in  the  subjective  order,  and  he  dubs  every 
experience  "idea."  But  he  is  sufficiently  clear-minded  to  see 
that,  if  we  shut  the  mind  up  absolutely  to  its  ideas,  it  cannot 
possibly  know  its  ideas  to  be  representative  of  things.  If  we  allow 
Berkeley  to  describe  the  "  objects  of  human  knowledge "  as  he 
does  in  the  first  section  of  his  "  Principles  "  —  if  we  recognize 
under  that  head  nothing  else  than  ideas  of  sense,  ideas  of  memory 
and  imagination,  the  passions  and  operations  of  the  mind,  and  the 
self  that  perceives  them  —  we  must  admit  that  his  battle  is  won  at 
the  outset,  for  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  know  what  cannot  by  any 
possibility  become  an  object  of  human  knowledge.  No  thing  is 
given  directly,  and  no  thing  can  be  logically  inferred  from  what  is 
1  "Essay,"  Book  IV,  Chapter  XI,  §  7. 


Some  Theories  of  Mind  and  World  413 

given  directly.  We  must  grant  to  Berkeley  the  credit  of  seeing 
more  clearly  than  did  Descartes  and  Locke  the  truth  that  no  pro- 
cess of  adding  and  subtracting  ideas  can  result  in  a  something  that 
is  not  a  complex  of  ideas.  By  manipulating  numbers  we  can  get 
numbers,  but  we  cannot  get  something  of  a  wholly  different  nature. 
It  is  useless  to  endeavor  to  manufacture  an  objective  order  out  of 
phenomena  which  belong  admittedly  to  the  subjective  order.  This  is 
what  Berkeley  does  when  he  turns  ideas  of  a  certain  vivid  and 
orderly  nature  into  "  real  things."  His  "  real  things,"  in  so  far  as 
they  are  ideas,  are  percepts,  and  remain  subjective.  It  is  quite 
proper  to  distinguish  in  the  subjective  order  between  sensation  and 
imagination,  between  percept  and  sensory  image ;  every  psycholo- 
gist recognizes  such  distinctions.  But  it  is  not  proper,  having 
made  the  distinction,  to  call  certain  of  the  phenomena  of  the 
subjective  order  "real  things"  and  force  them  to  play  the  role  of 
an  external  world. 

Hence,  if  we  must  credit  Berkeley  with  a  clearer  insight  than 
Descartes  and  Locke,  we  must  also  admit  that  he  was  more  lacking 
in  common  sense.  That  is  to  say,  that  vague  recognition_gf  the  f  j 
fact  that  there  is  an  external  world,  that  it  is  not  a  something 
groped  for  as  a  result  of  arflnference  from  ideas,  and  that  it  is  as 
directly  known  as  are  ideas  themselves  —  that  vague  recognition 
of  a  truth,  which  the  plain  man  can  champion  but  cannot  defend, 
was  present  to  the  minds  of  Descartes  and  Locke,  and  led  them  to 
wheel  around  with  shameless  inconsistency  when  it  became  evident 
that  their  path  led  to  a  desert.  Berkeley  continued  his  journey  in 
spite  of  the  protest  of  common  sense.  He  hardly  seems  to  have 
heard  its  still  small  voice,  which  is,  it  must  be  admitted,  a  muffled 
voice,  and  scarcely  articulate.  And  yet  may  we  not  assume  that 
he  heard  it  faintly  after  all,  since  he  was  moved  to  plant  his  desert 
with  percepts  and  to  call  them  trees  ? 

Upon  the  impossibility  of  getting  along  without  an  external 
world  —  a  real  external  world,  and  not  a  sham  "projection" — I 
have  dwelt  in  another  chapter.1  But  he  who  finds  it  inconceivable 
that  a  man  should  attempt  to  do  it,  either  was  not  born  to  be  a 
metaphysician,  or  is  new  to  the  trade.  Idealism  is  the  weakness 
of  acute  minds,  not  of  dull  ones.  It  means  that  a  certain  truth 
has  been  grasped,  and  firmly  grasped,  but  that  another  has  been 
overlooked. 

i  Chapter  XXII. 


414  Mind  and  Matter 

The  truth  which  the  Idealist  fails  to  recognize  is  much  empha- 
sized by  the  Materialist.  A  realm  of  minds  without  a  physical 
basis  seems  to  him  a  floating  wreath  of  mist,  a  chaos  of  impalpable 
unrealities.  I  hope  it  has  been  made  clear  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ters how  much  truth  lies  hid  in  his  contention.  Without  the 
objective  order,  without  the  real  world  in  space  and  time,  there 
would  be  no  world  at  all,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word,  no 
universe  of  things  and  minds,  no  system,  no  experience.  When 
we  quarrel  with  the  Materialist,  we  must  not  utterly  repudiate  all 
he  says,  for  he  speaks  truth  sometimes,  and  not  error. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

THE  WORLD  AS   UNPERCEIVED,  AND   THE   "UNKNOWABLE" 

IN  Chapter  XXIII  I  have  touched  upon  the  topic  upon  which 
I  propose  to  speak  in  this  chapter,  and  it  is  possible  that  I  have 
there  said  enough  to  bring  my  thought  clearly  before  the  acute 
reader  who  is  accustomed  to  such  analyses  as  I  have  attempted  to 
make.  It  is,  however,  scarcely  possible  to  be  too  explicit,  when 
one  is  dealing  with  ideas  so  elusive,  and  ideas  which  different  men 
appear  to  see  in  very  different  lights.  I  shall,  accordingly,  come 
back  again  to  the  distinction  between  the  mind  and  the  world,  and 
shall  try  to  render  it  more  unmistakable  by  answering  a  question, 
which  arises  in  many  minds,  and  to  which  many  men  seem  to  find 
it  difficult  to  give  a  satisfactory  answer. 

We  have  seen  that  we  must  accept  the  fact  that  we  perceive  a 
real  external  world.  It  will  not  do  to  regard  this  world  as  a  com- 
plex of  sensations,  an  idea,  or  a  "  projection."  The  external  world 
must  really  be  external,  that  is  to  say^  it  must  carefully  be  distin- 
guished from  the  contents  of  any  mind.  Certainly  it  is  thus  that 
science,  as  science,  treats  it.  The  geologist,  for  example,  has  no  hesi- 
tation in  placing  before  us  a  picture  of  the  earth  as  it  was  before  it  was 
in  a  condition  to  be  the  seat  of  life,  and  in  describing  the  successive 
stages  by  which  it  has  come  to  be  what  it  is.  He  is  ready  to 
admit  that  his  account  may  be  more  or  less  inaccurate ;  that  the 
limitations  of  his  knowledge  cause  him  to  walk  upon  rather  uncer- 
tain ground.  But,  such  as  it  is,  he  believes  his  account  to  be  a 
description  of  the  world  as  it  was  in  ages  past.  He  does  not  suppose 
for  a  moment  that  he  is  busying  himself  with  the  sensations  or 
ideas  of  any  creature  past  or  present.  He  recognizes,  of  course, 
that  at  certain  earlier  periods  of  the  world's  history  there  existed 
brutes  to  whom  we  must  attribute  a  psychic  life  of  some  sort,  and 
that  there  now  exist  men  who  may  have  a  highly  complex  mental 
life.  But  it  seems  to  him  absurd  to  maintain  that  the  series  of 
physical  changes  which  have  taken  place  upon  this  planet  is  to  be 

415 


416  Mind  and  Matter 

identified  with  the  mental  experience  of  any  brute  or  any  man. 
Let  the  psychologist  concern  himself  with  sensations  and  ideas ;  he 
will  tell  us  something  about  the  external  world. 

Thus,  he  gives  us  an  account  of  the  condition  of  things  before 
the  appearance  of  life  upon  the  earth,  and  he  expects  us  to  accept 
his  statements  as  true  or  partly  true,  or,  at  least,  more  probably  true 
than  some  other  statement  that  might  be  made  upon  the  subject. 
He  adduces  his  facts,  and  points  out  the  grounds  for  his  conclusions. 
He  does  not  appear  to  be  speaking  at  random.  So  long  as  we 
remain  within  the  limits  of  his  science,  we  can  make  no  general 
objection  to  his  attempt  to  enlighten  us. 

But  if  we  are  at  all  given  to  metaphysical  reflection,  there 
appears  to  rise  up  before  us  what,  at  first  sight,  seems  to  be  a  very 
serious  objection,  not  merely  to  the  particular  description  which 
he  has  seen  fit  to  give,  but  to  every  description  which  it  is  pos- 
sible for  him  to  give.  We  realize  with  a  start  that  he  is  bringing 
before  us  the  world  as  we  might  have  perceived  it,  could  we  have 
been  present  at  the  time  of  which  he  is  speaking. 

Now,  we  have  seen  that  there  is  no  element  in  the  objective 
order  of  experience  which  may  not  be  referred  to  the  subjective 
order ;  that  is  to  say,  which  may  not  be  shown  to  bear  a  significant 
relation  to  our  sense-organs  and  our  nervous  system.  Certain 
elements  of  our  experience  are,  when  referred  to  the  subjective 
order,  called  touch-movement  sensations ;  these  elements,  referred 
to  the  objective  order,  appear  to  be  the  very  stuff  of  which  the  ex- 
ternal world  is  made.  But  could  any  creature  perceive  an  exter- 
nal world  made  of  such  stuff,  if  he  were  himself  so  constituted 
that  he  could  have  no  touch-movement  sensations  ?  Can  we  not 
conceive  of  an  external  world  revealed  to  some  other  creature  in 
experiences  of  some  other  sort?  Indeed,  must  we  not  assume  that 
any  external  world  upon  which  any  creature  can  gaze  must  be,  in 
a  sense,  a  function  of  that  creature  itself?  A  truth  which  the 
psychologist  expresses  in  his  own  way  in  maintaining  that  we  can 
know  no  more  of  the  external  world  than  is  revealed  to  us  through 
our  sensations. 

The  world,  then,  as  we  conceive  it  to  have  existed  at  the 
remote  period  of  which  we  are  speaking,  is  such  a  world  as  may  be 
perceived  by  man,  a  being  with  given  sense-organs  and  a  given 
nervous  system.  At  the  date  in  question  no  such  being  existed; 
there  were  no  sense-organs  and  there  was  no  nervous  system  of 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "  Unknowable "     417 

any  sort.  Could  there,  under  these  circumstances,  have  been  in 
existence  such  a  world  as  we  are  asked  to  believe  in  ?  The  very- 
elements  of  which  it  is  composed  appear  to  be  dependent  upon 
conditions  which  are,  by  hypothesis,  absent.  The  difficulty  seems 
to  be  a  desperate  one,  for  we  lose,  apparently,  not  only  this  par- 
ticular external  world  appropriate  to  man.  but  everything  that  can 
bear  the  remotest  analogy  to  it.  Where  there  are  no  senses  what- 
ever and  no  nervous  system  of  any  sort,  there  cannot  be  sensations 
of  any  kind ;  and  we  know  absolutely  nothing  of  an  external  world 
which  is  composed  of  elements  incapable  of  being  regarded  in  the 
light  of  sensations. 

Can  we,  then,  say  that,  before  the  advent  of  life,  the  earth 
really  existed  under  the  form  pictured  to  us  by  the  geologist? 
Can  we  say  that  it  existed  under  any  form? 

If  we  turn  from  the  consideration  of  the  past  existence  of  the 
external  world  to  that  of  its  present  existence,  we  find  ourselves 
confronted  by  much  the  same  problem.  The  world  as  it  now  pre- 
sents itself  to  me  is  composed  of  sensation-stuff,  that  is  to  say,  of 
elements  which,  regarded  from  another  point  of  view,  must  be 
given  the  name  of  sensations.  I  must  recognize  the  fact  that, 
were  my  bodily  constitution  different,  the  world  upon  which  I  gaze 
would  be  a  more  or  less  different  world.  It  is  because  I  am  what 
I  am  that  I  perceive  this  table  before  me  to  be  what  it  is.  A  series 
of  beings  differing  more  and  more  widely  from  me  would  perceive 
a  series  of  tables  (may  I  be  permitted  the  use  of  the  word  ?)  differ- 
ing more  and  more  widely  from  this  one.  What  if  the  difference 
goes  beyond  a  difference  in  degree  ?  What  if  senses  and  nervous 
system  disappear  altogether?  Must  not  the  table  disappear  too? 
Can  a  table  unperceived  by  any  one  exist  under  any  form  whatever? 
And  if  it  cannot  exist  under  any  form,  can  it  mean  anything 
whatever  to  say  that  it  exists? 

We  are  brought  around,  thus,  to  an  old  difficulty.  We  have 
seen  that  a  world  really  external,  a  world  not  to  be  confounded 
with  the  perceptions  in  any  mind,  is  an  absolute  necessity,  if  there 
is  to  be  a  scheme  of  things,  an  experience,  at  all.  If  there  is  no 
external  world  there  are  no  sensations,  no  perceptions,  no  minds, 
for  the  distinctions  which  give  these  words  their  significance  are 
lost.  And  if  the  external  world  is  really  something  distinct  from 
the  perceptions  of  all  possible  minds,  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  it  has 
no  existence  except  in  the  perceptions  of  such  minds. 

2   E 


418  Mind  and  Matter 

It  exists  in  space  and  time,  it  has  a  past,  a  present,  a  future  ; 
it  exists  continuously ;  and  the  perceptions  of  minds  are  evanes- 
cent flashes,  which  come  into  being  at  this  or  that  moment  of  time, 
and  which  straightway  disappear.  And  yet,  when  we  ask  :  What 
is  this  external  world  which  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  per- 
ceptions of  any  mind  ?  can  we  give  any  account  of  it  ?  we  seem 
to  find  nothing  in  our  hands  save  perceptions  —  the  world  as  it 
presents  itself  to  this  mind  or  to  that  —  and  we  are  tempted  to 
talk  of  "projections." 

As  the  reader  will  see,  we  have  before  us  the  distinction 
between  the  world  as  it  is  and  the  world  as  it  seems  to  us.  This 
distinction  impresses  one  as  reasonable ;  and  yet,  when  one  faces 
the  difficulty  of  making  clear  what  one  means  by  the  world  as  it  is 
one  is  puzzled  to  know  how  to  justify  it. 

There  is  a  cheap  and  easy  way  of  extricating  oneself  from 
one's  difficulties,  but  it  is  a  poor  way.  One  has  only  to  distin- 
guish between  "  Reality"  and  its  "Manifestations"  and  to  maintain 
that  we  know  Reality  only  in  or  through  its  manifestations,  and 
cannot  expect  to  know  it  as  it  is  in  itself. 

We  may,  thus,  say  that  there  is  a  real  external  world,  and 
when  we  are  asked  to  explain  what  it  is,  we  may  refuse  to  answer 
on  the  ground  that  the  question  is  an  illegitimate  one.  In  main- 
taining that  there  is  such  a  world,  or  at  least  that  there  is  an  exter- 
nal Reality,  we  seem  to  find  a  door  of  escape  from  "  the  insanities 
of  idealism,"2  and  to  attain  at  least  something  to  which  mental 
phenomena,  perceptions,  may  be  related,  and  thus  be  saved  from 
the  fate  of  constituting  a  world  of  mere  phantasms.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  holding  that  this  external  Reality  is  unknowable,  we  free 
ourselves  from  the  obligation  of  trying  to  explain  to  any  one  how 
it  must  be  conceived.  It  is  not  to  be  conceived  at  all,  for  all  con- 
ceiving must  be  in  terms  of  consciousness  ;  it  is  not  like  anything, 
so  we  may  abandon  the  attempt  to  say  what  it  is  like.  It  is 
enough  that  it  exists,  and  by  its  existence  saves  the  world  of  our 
experiences  from  being  mere  illusion. 

I  have  said  that  this  way  of  solving  the  problem  brought  for- 
ward above  is  a  poor  one.  When  we  examine  it  with  care  we 
find  it  so  very  poor  that  we  cannot  but  wonder  that  any  thoughtful 
man  who  has  reflected  upon  it  can  regard  it  as  satisfactory. 

We  see,  in  the  first  place,  that  there  is  absolutely  no  founda- 
1  Spencer,  "First  Principles,"  Tart  II,  Chapter  III,  §  46. 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "  Unknowable  "     419 

tion  in  our  experience  for  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of  this 
external  Reality,  this  Unknowable.  I  beg  the  reader  to  recall  to 
mind  the  true  position  of  the  man  in  the  cell.1  What  has  he  to 
go  upon?  What  may  he  assume  to  exist  and  what  may  he  not? 
If  he  really  has  experience  of  appearances,  and  only  of  appear- 
ances, if  it  is  inconceivable  that  he  should  ever  have  experience 
of  Reality,  how  can  he  know  an  appearance  to  be  such,  and  to  be 
a  something  that  stands  over  against  Reality  as  contrasted  with 
it?  Can  he  even  think  of  Reality?  His  thinking  is  appearance 
and  nothing  more.  It  is  impossible  for  our  prisoner  to  create,  by 
pushing  about  the  furniture  in  his  cell,  a  something  that  is  not 
composed  of  furniture.  But  I  have  already  discussed  this  point 
at  such  length  that  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  dilate  upon  it 
here. 

In  the  second  place,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  it  is  quite 
impossible  to  regard  this  Unknowable  as  related  to  our  experi- 
ences as  a  whole,  as  reality  is  related  to  appearance  within  our 
experience. 

The  distinction  between  appearance  and  reality  is  a  perfectly 
justifiable  one ;  more  than  that,  it  is  a  very  useful  one.  I  have 
pointed  out2  that  the  distinction  is  one  which  every  man  is  forced 
to  draw  at  some  time  or  other,  and  one  which  the  man  of  science 
cannot  possibly  overlook.  It  sounds  odd  to  no  one  to  say  that, 
although  a  certain  tree  looks,  at  a  distance,  small  and  blue,  the 
tree  really  is  large  and  green ;  the  scholar  finds  no  fault  with  the 
statement  that,  although  a  given  material  thing  appears  to  fill 
space  continuously,  it  really  is  composed  of  moving  atoms  at  con- 
siderable distances  from  each  other.  We  are  constantly  distin- 
guishing between  things  as  they  appear  and  things  as  they  are, 
and  it  is  not  until  we  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  metaphysician 
that  the  fact  seems  to  us  worthy  of  comment. 

But,  we  should  surely  bear  in  mind  that,  when  we  thus  distin- 
guish between  appearance  and  reality,  we  are  simply  recognizing 
a  certain  relation  between  given  phenomena  in  our  experience. 
It  never  occurs  to  us  to  connect  this  or  that  appearance  with  this 
or  that  reality  at  random.  Each  appearance  must  be  connected 
with  its  appropriate  reality,  and  we  must  be  able  to  ascertain  what 
that  particular  appropriate  reality  is.  The  experience  which  I  may 
call  "  the  tree  as  seen  from  a  distance  "  must  be  connected  with 
1  See  Chapter  II.  a  Chapters  VIII  and  IX. 


420  Mind  and  Matter 

the  experience  which  I  may  call  "  the  tree  as  seen  close  at  hand  " ; 
to  connect  it,  as  appearance,  with  the  experience  "  the  horse  as 
seen  close  at  hand,"  as  reality,  is  nothing  less  than  absurd.  As  I 
have  pointed  out  in  the  chapters  referred  to  just  above,  our  experi- 
ences fall  into  groups ;  within  each  of  these  groups  a  single  expe- 
rience may  stand  for  any  or  all  of  the  others ;  all  the  experiences 
in  a  group  are  not  accorded  equal  values  ;  certain  experiences  fall 
into  the  subordinate  position  of  signs,  and  others,  in  which  the 
mind  rests  as  the  most  satisfactory  representatives  of  the  group 
as  a  whole,  take  the  more  dignified  position  of  thing  signified.  The 
experience  which  serves  as  sign  is  appearance ;  that  to  which  the 
mind  passes,  and  in  which  it  rests,  is  reality. 

Thus  the  words  "  appearance  "  and  "  reality  "  have  a  definite 
connotation  which  must  not  be  disregarded  when  the  words  are  used. 
To  be  the  reality  to  which  any  appearance  is  referred,  a  thing  must 
fulfil  certain  definite  conditions.  It  must  be  an  experience  belong- 
ing to  the  same  group  with  the  appearance ;  and  it  must  be  a 
peculiarly  satisfactory  member  of  that  group,  a  good  representa- 
tive that  can  give  more  information  than  other  members  touching 
the  group  as  a  whole. 

Now,  it  is  clear  that  an  external  Reality  of  the  sort  which  we 
are  discussing,  an  Unknowable,  which  cannot  have  its  place  in 
experience  at  all,  is  ludicrously  unsuited  to  playing  the  role  of  the 
reality  to  which  any  appearance  may  be  referred.  It  cannot  be 
a  member  of  the  same  group  of  experiences  with  any  appearance, 
and  of  course  it  cannot  be  an  important  member.  It  can  give  no 
information  regarding  anything.  Hence,  an  external  Reality  of 
this  sort  is  evidently  not  a  reality  to  which  one  may  refer  an  appear- 
ance ;  it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  its  manifestations  —  they  do  not 
belong  to  z'£,  in  any  intelligible  sense  whatever.  The  distinction, 
then,  between  the  world  as  it  seems  to  us  and  the  world  as  it  is,  if 
by  the  world  as  it  is  we  mean  an  Unknowable,  is  something  abso- 
lutely different  from  the  general  distinction  we  are  always  making 
between  things  as  they  seem  and  things  as  they  are.  The  external 
Reality  is  not  a  reality  at  all ;  it  is  a  mere  word,  a  sound,  with 
misleading  associations. 

How  mere  a  nothing  this  Unknowable  is,  is  borne  in  upon 
one  irresistibly  when  one  reflects  that  its  advocate  can  make  no 
statement  regarding  it  which  cannot  be  shown  to  be  illegitimate. 
Shall  we  say  it  exists?  Presumably  by  this  we  mean  that  it 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "  Unknowable  "     421 

exists  really,  and  not  merely  in  the  imagination.  But  our  evidence 
that  a  thing  exists  as  a  real  thing  and  not  as  a  mere  figment  of  the 
imagination  lies  in  the  discovery  that  it  belongs  to  the  objective 
order  of  experience.  The  Unknowable  cannot  fulfil  this  con- 
dition. Shall  we  say  that  it  is  external?  What  is  it  that  distin- 
guishes things  external  from  things  internal?  Manifestly,  the 
order  to  which  they  belong,  their  context.  The  Unknowable 
belongs  to  no  order;  it  has  no  context.  Shall  we  say  that  we 
may,  at  least,  call  the  Unknowable  an  unknown  Cause  ?  The  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect  is  a  relation  of  antecedence  and  conse- 
quence in  the  objective  order.  The  word  "  cause  "  becomes  a  hollow 
shell  when  we  have  abstracted  the  whole  content  of  the  concep- 
tion of  causality,  and  it  addresses  itself  to  the  ear,  not  to  the 
mind. 

It  seems  plain  that  the  man  who  seeks  a  way  of  escape  from 
the  "  insanities  of  idealism  "  will  not  do  well  to  betake  himself 
to  the  Unknowable.  What  he  wants  is  a  world  which  really 
existed  in  the  remote  past ;  which  really  exists  now  when  no  one 
perceives  it;  which  will  really  exist  in  the  future — a  world  spread 
out  in  space  and  time,  to  which  different  minds  existing  at  differ- 
ent times  or  at  the  same  time  may  be  related,  and  through  which 
they  may  be  related  to  each  other.  If  there  be  such  a  world,  it 
seems  that  the  universe  may  be  a  Cosmos,  an  orderly  system  of 
things. 

But  the  Unknowable  does  not  bear  the  faintest  resemblance  to 
such  a  world,  and  can  serve  none  of  the  purposes  which  such  a 
world  may  serve.  It  cannot  serve  to  order  anything.  It  is  im- 
possible to  construct  a  Cosmos  out  of  the  unattached  and  unrelated 
groups  of  mental  phenomena  allowed  us  by  the  idealist  plus  the 
mere  cipher  offered  us  by  the  advocate  of  the  Unknowable. 

Let  the  reader  attempt  the  construction.  Let  him  carefully 
purge  the  conception  of  the  Unknowable  of  all  those  glimmerings 
of  meaning  with  which  a  careless  thinker  is  apt  to  sully  its  virgin 
purity  and  degrade  it  to  the  level  of  things  knowable.  Let  him 
remember  that  it  has  not  existed  in  the  past,  does  not  exist  in  the 
present,  and  will  not  exist  in  the  future,  for  it  is  above  temporal 
distinctions.  Let  him  remember  that  it  is  not  and  never  was  any- 
ichere,  nor  were  its  parts,  for  it  is  above  spatial  distinctions,  and 
a  genuine  Unknowable  must  not  have  parts.  Let  him  remember 
that  it  is  not  real,  is  not  external,  arid  is  not  a  cause,  in  any  sense 


422  Mind  and  Matter 

of  those  words  with  which  he  is  familiar.  Finally,  let  him  remem- 
ber that  it  is  not  present  to  consciousness,  is  not  behind  the  veil, 
and  does  not  underlie  phenomena,  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  those 
expressions.  Having  thoroughly  washed  it  free  of  all  meaning, 
let  him  try  to  use  it  in  the  construction  of  a  universe.  Can  it 
explain  why  any  man  has  a  given  experience  at  a  given  time  ? 
Can  it  explain  why  one  man  may  see  the  world  under  a  somewhat 
different  guise  from  that  under  which  another  man  sees  it  ?  Can 
it  even  help  to  make  intelligible  what  is  meant  by  a  given  time, 
a  given  place,  one  man,  another  man  ? 

I  am  speaking,  of  course,  of  the  Unknowable  in  its  purity,  of 
an  external  Reality  which  is  not  external  and  which  is  not  real. 
Those  who  pin  their  faith  to  the  Unknowable  do  not,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  wash  it  as  clean  as  this.  I  suppose  we  shall  always  regard 
Mr.  Spencer  as  the  high-priest  of  this  particular  cult ;  and  it  is  a 
part  of  the  honor  accorded  to  the  most  prominent  representative  of 
any  class  that  he  must  bear  the  brunt  of  the  criticisms  brought 
against  the  class  as  a  whole.  I  have  no  intention  of  examining  in 
detail  his  arguments  for  the  Unknowable,  but  it  is  well  worth 
while  to  linger  a  little  in  contemplation  of  the  impurities  which  he 
has  allowed  to  attach  themselves  to  the  conception.  It  is  the 
presence  of  these  impurities  that  lends  to  the  Unknowable  the 
fascination  which  it  exercises  over  many  minds ;  no  man  can  be 
greatly  charmed  by  a  mere  vacuum.  Mr.  Spencer  writes:1  — 

"  Hence  our  firm  belief  in  objective  reality.  When  we  are 
taught  that  a  piece  of  matter,  regarded  by  us  as  existing  exter- 
nally, cannot  be  really  known,  but  that  we  can  know  only  cer- 
tain impressions  produced  on  us,  we  are  yet,  by  the  relativity 
of  thought,  compelled  to  think  of  these  in  relation  to  a  cause 
—  the  notion  of  a  real  existence  which  generated  these  impres- 
sions becomes  nascent.  If  it  be  proved  that  every  notion  of  a 
real  existence  which  we  can  frame  is  inconsistent  with  itself  — 
that  matter,  however  conceived  by  us,  cannot  be  matter  as  it 
actually  is  —  our  conception,  though  transfigured,  is  not  destroyed  : 
there  remains  the  sense  of  reality,  dissociated  as  far  as  possible 
from  those  special  forms  under  which  it  was  before  represented 
in  thought.  Though  Philosophy  condemns  successively  each 
attempted  conception  of  the  Absolute ;  though  in  obedience  to 

1  "  First  Principles,"  Part  I,  Chapter  IV,  §  26.     I  quote  only  the  closing  para- 
graphs of  Mr.  Spencer's  argument. 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "  Unknowable, "     423 

it  we  negative,  one  after  another,  each  idea  as  it  arises,  yet,  as 
we  cannot  expel  the  entire  contents  of  consciousness,  there  ever 
remains  behind  an  element  which  passes  into  new  shapes.  The 
continual  negation  of  each  particular  form  and  limit  simply  results 
in  the  more  or  less  complete  abstraction  of  all  forms  and  limits, 
and  so  ends  in  an  indefinite  consciousness  of  the  unformed  and 
unlimited. 

"And  here  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  ultimate  difficulty  — 
how  can  there  possibly  be  constituted  a  consciousness  of  the  un- 
formed and  unlimited,  when,  by  its  very  nature,  consciousness  is 
possible  only  under  forms  and  limits?  Though  not  directly 
withdrawn  by  the  withdrawal  of  its  conditions,  must  not  the  raw 
material  of  consciousness  be  withdrawn  by  implication  ?  Must 
it  not  vanish  when  the  conditions  of  its  existence  vanish?  That 
there  must  be  a  solution  of  this  difficulty  is  manifest;  since 
even  those  who  would  put  it  do,  as  already  shown,  admit  that 
we  have  some  such  consciousness ;  and  the  solution  appears  to 
be  that  above  shadowed  forth.  Such  consciousness  is  not,  and 
cannot  be,  constituted  by  any  single  mental  act,  but  is  the  prod- 
uct oi  many  mental  acts.  In  each  concept  there  is  an  element 
which  persists.  It  is  impossible  for  this  element  to  be  absent 
from  consciousness  and  for  it  to  be  present  in  consciousness  alone  : 
either  alternative  involves  unconsciousness  —  the  one  from  want 
of  the  substance,  the  other  from  want  of  the  form.  But  the 
persistence  of  this  element  under  successive  conditions  necessi- 
tates a  sense  of  it  as  distinguished  from  the  conditions  and  inde- 
pendent of  them.  The  sense  of  a  something  that  is  conditioned  in 
every  thought  cannot  be  got  rid  of  because  the  something  cannot 
be  got  rid  of.  How,  then,  must  the  sense  of  this  something  be 
constituted?  Evidently  by  combining  successive  concepts  de- 
prived of  their  limits  and  conditions.  We  form  this  indefinite 
thought,  as  we  form  many  of  our  definite  thoughts,  by  the  coales- 
cence of  a  series  of  thoughts.  Let  me  illustrate  this :  A  large 
complex  object,  having  attributes  too  numerous  to  be  represented 
at  once,  is  yet  tolerably  well  conceived  by  the  union  of  several 
representations,  each  standing  for  part  of  its  attributes.  On  think- 
ing of  a  piano,  there  first  rises  in  imagination  its  outer  appear- 
ance, to  which  are  instantly  added  (though  by  separate  mental 
acts)  the  ideas  of  its  remote  side  and  of  its  solid  substance.  A 
complete  conception,  however,  involves  the  strings,  the  hammers, 


424  Mind  and  Matter 

the  dampers,  the  pedals;  and  while  successively  adding  these, 
the  attributes  first  thought  of  lapse  partially  or  wholly  out  of 
consciousness.  Nevertheless,  the  whole  group  constitutes  a  repre- 
sentation of  the  piano.  Now  as  in  this  case  we  form  a  definite 
concept  of  a  special  existence,  by  imposing  limits  and  conditions  in 
successive  acts,  so  in  the  converse  case,  by  taking  away  limits 
and  conditions  in  successive  acts,  we  form  an  indefinite  notion 
of  general  existence.  By  fusing  a  series  of  states  of  conscious- 
ness, from  each  of  which,  as  it  arises,  the  limitations  and  condi- 
tions are  abolished,  there  is  produced  a  consciousness  of  something 
unconditioned.  To  speak  more  rigorously  —  this  consciousness  is 
not  the  abstract  of  any  one  group  of  thoughts,  ideas,  or  concep- 
tions, but  it  is  the  abstract  of  all  thoughts,  ideas,  or  conceptions. 
That  which  is  common  to  them  all  we  predicate  by  the  word 
'  existence.'  Dissociated  as  this  becomes  from  each  of  its  modes 
by  the  perpetual  change  of  those  modes,  it  remains  as  an  indefinite 
consciousness  of  something  constant  under  all  modes  —  of  being 
apart  from  its  appearances.  The  distinction  we  feel  between 
special  and  general  existence  is  the  distinction  between  that 
which  is  changeable  in  us  and  that  which  is  unchangeable.  The 
contrast  between  the  Absolute  and  the  Relative  in  our  minds 
is  really  the  contrast  between  that  mental  element  which  exists 
absolutely  and  those  which  exist  relatively. 

"  So  that  this  ultimate  mental  element  is  at  once  necessarily 
indefinite  and  necessarily  indestructible.  Our  consciousness  of 
the  unconditioned  being  literally  the  unconditioned  consciousness, 
or  raw  material  of  thought  to  which  in  thinking  we  give  definite 
forms,  it  follows  that  an  ever  present  sense  of  real  existence  is 
the  very  basis  of  our  intelligence.  As  we  can  in  successive 
mental  acts  get  rid  of  all  particular  conditions  and  replace  them 
by  others,  but  cannot  get  rid  of  that  undifferentiated  substance 
of  consciousness  which  is  conditioned  anew  in  every  thought, 
there  ever  remains  with  us  a  sense  of  that  which  exists  persist- 
ently and  independently  of  conditions.  While  by  the  laws  of 
thought  we  are  prevented  from  forming  a  conception  of  absolute 
existence,  we  are  by  the  laws  of  thought  prevented  from  excluding 
the  consciousness  of  absolute  existence;  this  consciousness  being, 
as  we  here  see,  the  obverse  of  self-consciousness.  And  since  the 
measure  of  relative  validity  among  our  beliefs  is  the  degree  of 
their  persistence  in  opposition  to  the  efforts  made  to  change  them, 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "Unknowable"     425 

it  follows  that  this  which  persists  at  all  times,  under  all  circum- 
stances, has  the  highest  validity  of  any. 

"  The  points  in  this  somewhat  too  elaborate  argument  are 
these :  In  the  very  assertion  that  all  knowledge,  properly  so 
called,  is  Relative,  there  is  involved  the  assertion  that  there  exists 
a  Non-relative.  In  each  step  of  the  argument  by  which  this  doc- 
trine is  established,  the  same  assumption  is  made.  From  the 
necessity  of  thinking  in  relations,  it  follows  that  the  Relative  is 
itself  inconceivable,  except  as  related  to  a  real  Non-relative. 
Unless  a  real  Non-relative  or  Absolute  be  postulated,  the  Rela- 
tive itself  becomes  absolute ;  and  so  brings  the  argument  to  a 
contradiction.  And  on  watching  our  thoughts,  we  have  seen  how 
impossible  it  is  to  get  rid  of  the  consciousness  of  an  Actuality 
lying  behind  Appearances  ;  and  how,  from  this  impossibility, 
results  our  indestructible  belief  in  that  Actuality." 

Now,  I  have  stated  some  pages  back  that  the  first  objection  to 
the  Unknowable  is  that  we  have  absolutely  no  foundation  in  our 
experience  for  the  assumption  of  its  existence.  Is  not  that  objec- 
tion answered  here  ?  Surely  every  careful  reader  of  the  extract 
given  above  must  see  that  the  only  Unknowable  with  which  Mr. 
Spencer's  argument  is  concerned  is  an  internal  Unknowable,  a 
something  which  the  man  hopelessly  wedded  to  the  insanities  of 
idealism  may  accept  as  frankly  as  Mr.  Spencer.  It  is  "  an  indefi- 
nite consciousness,"  "  raw  material  of  consciousness,"  an  "  indefi- 
nite thought,"  an  "  abstract  of  all  thoughts,  ideas,  or  conceptions." 
All  doubts  as  to  its  nature  should  be  set  at  rest  by  the  unequivocal 
statement  that  "  our  consciousness  of  the  unconditioned  "  is  "  liter- 
ally the  unconditioned  consciousness,  or  raw  material  of  thought 
to  which  in  thinking  we  give  definite  forms."  It  is  this  "  undif- 
ferentiated  substance  of  consciousness  which  is  conditioned  anew 
in  every  thought "  that  remains  with  us  as  an  Absolute  through 
all  forms  of  the  conditioned. 

This,  then,  is  the  Reality  for  which  Mr.  Spencer  argues !  It  is 
what  is  left  when  the  differences  which  distinguish  mental  phe- 
nomena are  cancelled  —  it  is  their  common  core.  But  this  is  not 
an  external  Reality.  It  cannot  possibly  extricate  us  from  the  per- 
plexities of  the  idealist  and  furnish  us  with  a  World.  So  palpably 
unequal  is  it  to  the  task,  that  Mr.  Spencer  at  once  abandons  it  and 
turns  to  an  Absolute,  an  external  Reality,  of  a  wholly  different 
nature,  with  which  the  argument  has  no  connection  whatever. 


426  Mind  and  Matter 

This  new  Reality  is  assumed  without  any  argument.  It  is  not  to 
be  found  in  our  experiences  by  a  process  of  abstraction ;  it  lies 
behind  them.  It  is  an  Inscrutable  Power  whose  nature  transcends 
intuition  and  is  beyond  imagination.  It  seems  absurd  to  speak 
thus  of  the  raw  material  of  thought.  We  may  speak  of  the  actions 
of  this  Unseen  Reality ;  it  is  an  Unknown  Cause  which  produces  in 
us  certain  beliefs  and  thereby  authorizes  us  to  profess  and  act  them 
out;  we  must  not  in  our  thought  degrade  it,  for  it  may  have  a 
mode  of  being  as  much  transcending  Intelligence  and  Will  as  these 
transcend  mechanical  motion.  Manifestly,  this  cannot  be  written 
of  a  raw  material  whose  very  rawness  is  due  to  the  fact  that  such 
distinctions  as  active  and  passive,  cause  and  effect,  higher  and 
lower,  have  been  completely  abstracted  from.1 

We  must  not,  then,  think  of  the  external  reality  which  is  to 
save  us  from  the  idealistic  chaos  as  being  the  raw  material  of  con- 
sciousness. It  is  something  entirely  different,  and  in  another  of 
his  works  Mr.  Spencer  expressly  recognizes  the  fact.  He  says : 
"  The  postulate  with  which  metaplrysical  reasoning  sets  out,  is  that 
we  are  primarily  conscious  only  of  our  sensations  —  that  we  cer- 
tainly know  we  have  these,  and  that  if  there  be  anything  beyond 
these  serving  as  cause  for  them,  it  can  be  known  only  by  inference 
from  them. 

"  I  shall  give  much  surprise  to  the  metaphysical  reader  if  I  call 
in  question  this  postulate ;  and  the  surprise  will  rise  into  astonish- 
ment if  I  distinctly  deny  it.  Yet  I  must  do  this.  Limiting  the 
proposition  to  those  epi-peripheral  feelings  produced  in  us  by 
external  objects  (for  these  are  alone  in  question),  I  see  no 
alternative  but  to  affirm  that  the  thing  primarily  known  is  not 
that  a  sensation  has  been  experienced,  but  that  there  exists  an 
outer  object."  2 

Thus  we  primarily  know,  not  our  sensation  nor  the  raw  ma- 
terial of  our  sensations,  but  a  something  beyond,  —  a  something 
which  produces  them  and  their  raw  material.  It  is  of  no  little 
importance  to  bear  this  in  mind.  As  long  as  we  regard  our  exter- 
nal Reality  or  our  Absolute  as  no  more  than  "an  indefinite  con- 
sciousness "  or  "  an  indefinite  thought,"  its  existence  appears  to 
have  for  us  at  least  a  semi-intelligibility.  It  is  found  in  our  expe- 
rience ;  it  is  that  mental  element  which  all  thoughts,  ideas,  or  con- 

1  Mr.  Spencer's  catalogue  of  the  attributes  of  his  second  Absolute  fills  Chapter  V. 

2  "Principles  of  Psychology,"  Part  VII,  Chapter  VI,  §  404. 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "Unknowable"     427 

ceptions  have  in  common.  But  the  external  Reality  which  is 
beyond  all  thoughts,  ideas,  and  conceptions  is  neither  a  definite 
nor  an  indefinite  element  in  our  experience.  It  does  not  exist,  in 
the  sense  in  which  such  elements  may  be  said  to  exist  ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  has  no  place  in  the  circle  of  our  experiences ;  it  is  not  given 
as  they  are  given. 

The  Absolute  contained  in  appearances,  their  common  core,  is  a 
thing  to  be  attained  by  a  legitimate  process  of  abstraction  with 
which  we  are  all  familiar  ;  and  when  it  is  attained,  it  is  a  something 
to  which  it  seems  possible  to  point  and  of  which  it  does  not  seem 
to  be  nonsense  to  speak  —  it  is  an  indefinite  thought.  When  one  is 
discoursing  of  such  a  thing  as  this,  speech  has  not  become  wholly 
without  significance.  There  can,  however,  be  no  greater  blunder 
than  the  transference  of  this  significance  to  an  Absolute  which  is 
not  an  indefinite  thought,  cannot  be  proved  to  exist  as  an  indefinite 
thought  can,  and  cannot  hold  in  experience  the  place  appropriate 
to  an  indefinite  thought,  whatever  that  place  may  be. 

It  can  hardly  be  gainsaid  that  Mr.  Spencer,  in  confusing  the 
two  Absolutes,  and  in  passing  over  without  apology  from  the  first 
to  the  second,  has  given  to  the  statement  that  this  latter  Absolute 
exists  something  like  a  meaning.  This  meaning  must  carefully 
be  denied  to  it.  The  reader  must  resolutely  forget  all  that  he  has 
said  in  the  long  extract  given  above,  for  it  has  no  bearing  upon 
the  case,  and  is  wholly  misleading. 

Nor  must  one  carry  over  to  this  Absolute,  as  we  have  seen,  any 
other  distinctions  which  have  their  significance  only  within  the 
realm  of  our  experience.  Mr.  Spencer  carries  over  a  host  of  such. 
He  conceives  his  external  Reality  as  "  lying  behind  appearances," 
or  as  "  underlying  appearances  " ;  we  have  seen  that  the  relation  of 
the  Unknowable  to  phenomena  cannot  possibly  be  that  of  reality 
to  appearance.  He  calls  it  an  Incomprehensible  Power ;  we  call  a 
thing  a  power  when  it  has  certain  definite  ear-marks ;  that  which 
can  do  nothing  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the  words  is  not  a 
power.  He  speaks  of  its  presence  ;  it  is  not  present  in  conscious- 
ness, and  it  remains  to  show  in  what  sense  it  can  be  present  to  any- 
thing. He  makes  it  external ;  it  has  no  place  in  the  outer  world 
as  it  is  revealed  to  us.  He  calls  it  a  Reality ;  it  is  impossible  to 
show  that  it  is  real  as  are  those  things  which  we  commonly 
call  real  and  which  we  distinguish  from  things  unreal.  He  calls 
it  a  Cause ;  it  stands  quite  outside  of  any  chain  of  causes  and 


428  Mind  and  Matter 

effects  of  which  science  knows  anything,  and  with  which  men  of 
science  ever  think  it  worth  while  to  occupy  themselves. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  every  gleam  of  meaning  which  Mr.  Spencer 
allows  to  light  up  the  darkness  of  the  Unknowable,  is  a  gleam  which 
must  logically  be  excluded.  This  he  himself  admits,  for  has  he  not 
informed  us  that  we  can  only  escape  error  by  regarding  every  notion 
we  frame  of  the  Unknowable  "as  merely  a  symbol,"  while  making 
it  very  plain  that  the  symbol  does  not  symbolize  ? J  Of  course,  this 
means,  if  it  means  anything,  that  when  we  call  the  Unknowable 
external,  and  a  Power,  a  Cause  and  a  Reality,  we  are  quite  as  wide 
of  the  mark  as  though  we  were  to  call  it  internal,  and  an  Impo- 
tence, an  Effect  and  an  Unreality.  If  words  must  be  stripped  of  all 
meaning  before  we  apply  them  to  the  Unknowable,  there  can  be  no 
good  reason  for  employing  one  word  rather  than  another  when  one 
describes  it.  We  cannot  find  fault  with  the  man  who  elects  to  call 
the  thing  an  emotion,  a  button,  or  a  cocked  hat,  if  it  is  clearly  under- 
stood that  he  is  not  supposed  to  mean  what  he  appears  to  be  saying. 

I  must  apologize  to  the  reader  for  dwelling  so  long  upon  Mr. 
Spencer's  doctrine.  It  has  been  criticised  very  often,  and  it  is 
easy  to  criticise.  But  I  am  most  anxious  that  it  be  clearly  seen 
that  a  genuine  and  unadulterated  Unknowable  is  really  nothing  at 
all.  When  one  has  washed  it  clean,  there  is  no  residue  whatever. 
One  cannot  construct  a  world  out  of  mental  phenomena  plus  an 
Unknowable,2  for  in  adding  the  latter  one  has  added  nothing  to 
the  mental  phenomena. 

Thus  we  seem  to  be  left  sticking  in  the  difficulty  that  embar- 
rassed us  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter.  We  cannot  say  that 
the  world  as  it  really  existed  before  the  advent  of  sentient  creatures 
was  the  Unknowable.  We  have  no  reason  for  saying  this,  and  when 
we  have  said  it,  we  have  said  nothing.  Did  a  world  exist  at  all  ? 
Science  and  common  sense  say:  Yes.  But  what  world?  The 
world  as  described  to  us  in  touch-movement  sensations,  or  rather, 
in  elements  which  may  be  regarded  as  touch-movement  sensations  ? 
a  world  appropriate  to  such  a  creature  as  man  is  ?  How  could  sucli 
a  world  have  existed  when  as  yet  the  senses  had  not  been  developed 
that  make  touch-movement  sensations  possible  ? 

1  "First  Principles,"  Part  I,  Chapter  V,  §  31. 

2  I  do  not  think  it  is  necessary  to  comment  upon  the  passages  in  which  Mr.  Spen- 
cer seems  to  hold  to  a  phenomenal  world  beyond  consciousness,  e.g.  Part  I,  Chapter 
III,  §  15 ;  Part  II,  Chapter  II,  §  44,  and  Chapter  III. 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "  Unknowable "     429 

Let  us  go  back  a  little ;  and  let  us  remember  that  words  must 
not  be  used  without  a  meaning.  We  have  seen  what  real  existence 
means.  We  must  not  get  away  from  this  meaning.  Certain  phe- 
nomena fall  into  what  I  have  called  the  objective  order.  A  con- 
sciousness of  this  order  is  a  consciousness  of  the  external  world.  A 
real  external  thing  is  a  something  having  its  place  in  this  order.  As 
having  such  a  place  it  has  real  existence. 

This  order  is  spread  out  in  space  and  time ;  in  other  words, 
space  and  time  are  the  plan  of  the  system.  A  real  thing  may  be 
now  before  me ;  that  is,  it  may  have  its  place  in  the  system  at  a 
point  called  the  present.  But  it  may  just  as  well  have  its  place  at 
a  very  different  point  in  the  system ;  that  is,  it  may  belong  to  the 
remote  past.  Its  right  to  be  called  real  does  not  derive  from  its 
being  present  here  and  now ;  it  derives  from  its  having  a  place 
in  the  system.  Hence,  when  I  ask  whether  the  world  ever 
was  as  the  geologist  tells  me  it  was  before  life  appeared  on 
this  planet,  I  am  asking  whether  the  phenomena  indicated  in 
his  description  may  really  be  accepted  as  belonging  to  the  objec- 
tive order,  whether  they  may  legitimately  be  assigned  a  place  in 
that  series. 

Now,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  two  chapters,  we  do  not  merely 
recognize  an  objective  order,  the  external  world,  and  a  single  sub- 
jective order  which  we  recognize  as  our  own  mind.  We  recognize 
the  existence  of  a  multitude  of  other  minds,  past  and  present,  re- 
lated to  other  bodies  as  our  mind  is  related  to  our  body.  That  is 
to  say,  we  relate  to  various  groups  of  phenomena  in  the  objective 
order  certain  groups  of  phenomena  not  themselves  in  the  objective 
order. 

We  must  not  forget  that  it  is  to  certain  phenomena  in  the  objective 
order  that  we  seem  justified  by  experience  in  relating  our  own  and 
other  minds.  An  Unknowable,  a  Thing-in-itself,  a  Noumenon,  never 
enters  into  the  question  at  all.  And  we  must  not  forget  that  when 
we  say :  if  our  senses  were  different,  the  whole  external  world 
would  be  perceived  to  be  different,  we  only  mean  that,  given  cer- 
tain changes  in  the  objective  order,  the  whole  objective  order  would 
have  to  be  transformed  in  harmony  with  those  changes. 

The  statement  that,  if  our  senses  were  different,  the  external 
world  upon  which  we  gaze  would  be  perceived  to  be  different,  is 
not  a  statement  made  at  random.  It  is  a  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  we  can  pass  from  the  objective  order  in  one  form  to  the  objec- 


430  Mind  and  Matter 

live  order  in  another  form.  The  question  may  at  once  be  raised : 
Is  this  the  same  objective  order?  Are  we  speaking  of  the  same 
external  world  ?  But  I  ask  the  reader  to  remark  the  fact  that  we 
pass  from  the  objective  order  in  the  one  form  to  the  objective  order 
in  another.  We  are  not  concerned  with  two  disconnected  worlds ; 
if  we  were,  any  such  transition  would  be  impossible.  We  remain 
always,  if  we  reason  soberly  and  talk  sense,  within  the  one  system 
of  phenomena.  We  pass  from  part  to  part  of  this  system,  not 
from  one  system  to  another  independent  of  it ;  if  we  choose,  we 
may  indicate  this  fact  by  saying  that  we  pass,  not  from  one 
external  world  to  another,  but  from  one  aspect  of  the  external 
world  to  another. 

When  the  man  of  science  gives  us  an  account  of  the  world  as 
it  was  before  life  appeared  on  this  planet,  he  is  carrying  back  for 
us  the  objective  order  upon  which  we  gaze,  and  the  elements 
which  compose  it  throughout  are  not  different  from  those  in 
which  the  world  presents  itself  to  us  now.  If,  however,  his 
account  is  a  good  one  —  if  it  is  true  —  and  if  it  is  ideally  com- 
plete, we  can,  provided  we  are  able  to  supplement  it  with  an 
equally  complete  knowledge  of  the  relations  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  subjective  order  to  those  of  the  objective  order  (i.e.  of  the 
relations  of  our  mind  to  our  body),  use  the  information  he  gives 
us  as  a  foundation  from  which  we  may  pass  to  the  phenomena  of 
the  objective  order  and  of  the  subjective  order  as  they  may  be 
revealed  in  the  experience  of  every  possible  creature. 

This  statement  will,  I  hope,  become  clearer  to  the  reader  when 
he  has  read  the  two  chapters  that  follow  this  one.  It  amounts  to 
saying  that  if  we  had  an  ideally  perfect  knowledge  of  the  objective 
order  and  of  the  subjective  order  as  they  present  themselves  in  our 
experience,  and  had  an  ideally  perfect  knowledge  of  their  relations, 
we  should  have  the  key  to  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  external  world 
in  all  its  aspects  and  to  the  contents  of  all  minds.  In  oilier  words, 
we  miylit  know  everything  of  which  it  means  anything  to  say  :  it  exists. 
That  we  fall  pitiably  short  of  this  ideal,  it  is  scarcely  worth  while 
to  emphasize. 

Thus  we  see  that,  if  the  man  of  science  does  his  work  well,  he 
is  helping  us  to  an  objective  order  which  will  serve  to  unify  and 
bring  into  a  system  all  conceivable  phenomena.  His  account  of 
the  world  is  not  the  only  conceivable  account  of  the  world ;  but  it 
is  as  true  as  it  is  conceivable  that  any  account  of  the  world  should 


The  World  as  Unperceived,  and  the  "  Unknowable "     431 

be ;  and  from  it  every  other  possible  account  can,  theoretically,  at 
least,  be  deduced. 

Perhaps  one  will  admit  as  much  as  this,  and,  nevertheless,  feel 
disposed  to  complain.  One  may  insist  that  such  an  account  as  I 
am  discussing  gives  us,  after  all,  not  the  external  world  as  it  is,  but 
the  external  world  as  it  is  perceived,  or  might  be  perceived,  by 
us  —  in  other  words,  it  gives  us  only  our  impressions  of  an  external 
world,  impressions  from  which  we  seem  to  be  able  to  pass  to  other 
impressions  appropriate  to  us  or  to  other  creatures. 

I  answer :  first,  that  "  the  external  world  as  perceived  by  us  " 
is  by  no  means  a  thing  to  be  confounded  with  "  our  impressions  of 
an  external  world."  In  the  first  case,  we  are  concerned  with  an 
objective  order  as  objective,  a  something  to  which  our  own  and 
other  minds  are  referred  and  from  which  they  are  distinguished. 
In  the  second,  we  are  concerned  with  a  collection  of  phenomena 
referred  to  a  particular  mind.  The  two  constructs  are  by  no 
means  identical,  and  they  must  not  be  interchanged.  It  is  not 
absurd  to  say  my  mind  is  referred  to  a  certain  body  in  the  external 
world  perceived  by  me,  and  another  mind  is  referred  to  another 
body  in  the  same  external  world  perceived  by  me.  It  is  absurd  to 
say  my  mind  is  referred  to  a  certain  group  of  impressions  in  my 
mind,  and  another  mind  is  referred  to  another  group  of  impressions 
in  my  mind. 

And  I  answer:  second,  it  is  a  misapprehension  to  suppose  that 
"the  external  world  as  it  is"  can  be  anything  else  than  "the 
external  world  as  it  is  perceived  by  me,"  or  the  external  world  as 
it  is  perceived  by  some  other  creature.  Words  must  not  be  used 
without  a  meaning.  What  we  mean  by  the  expression  "  the 
external  world  "  is  a  thing  to  be  discovered  by  analysis.  Analysis 
seems  to  reveal  that  it  always  means  the  objective  order  of  experi- 
ence as  contrasted  with  the  subjective.  As,  however,  there  are  no 
phenomena  in  the  objective  order  which  may  not  take  their  place 
in  the  subjective  order  and  be  contrasted  with  another  objective, 
it  is  easy  to  fall  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  all  our  experiences 
are  subjective  —  which  is  absurd  —  and  of  feeling  compelled  to 
look  for  a  something  objective  which  cannot  take  its  place  in  the 
subjective  order  under  any  circumstances.  For  those  who  seek 
such  an  "objective  something"  nothing  remains  but  the  Unknow- 
able, which  is  neither  something  nor  objective,  in  any  intelligible 
sense  of  the  words. 


432  Mind  and  Matter 

We  come  round,  then,  to  the  questions  raised  at  the  beginning 
of  the  chapter.  Shall  we  maintain  that  the  world  existed  in  the 
remote  past,  and  that  it  exists  now  when  unperceived?  Yes. 
Shall  we  admit  that  the  man  of  science  can  tell  us  what  it  was  and 
is  like  ?  Certainly.  To  be  sure,  the  question  must  be  given  a  mean- 
ing, if  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  worthy  of  an  answer.  When  it  is  given 
a  meaning,  it  is  not  difficult  to  find  for  it  an  answer.  One  must 
not  make  of  it  an  absurd  question,  and  ask,  in  effect :  How  does 
the  world  look  to  a  creature  that  is  not  looking?  The  philosopher 
can  be  better  employed  in  some  other  way  than  in  seeking  the 
answer  to  such  a  question  as  this. 


PART  IV 
OTHER  MINDS,  AND  THE  REALM  OF  MINDS 

CHAPTER  XXVII 
THE  EXISTENCE  OF  OTHER  MINDS 

IN  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  from  time  to  time  spoken  of 
other  minds  as  though  every  man  had  good  reason  to  believe  that 
other  minds  than  his  own  existed,  and  as  though  he  could  under- 
stand what  I  meant  when  I  referred  to  such.  This  I  had  a  right 
to  expect  of  him,  for  common  thought  accepts  without  question  an 
external  world  and  a  realm  of  minds  in  relation  to  it;  in  a  sense 
cut  off  from  each  other,  it  is  true,  and  yet  quite  well  aware  of  each 
other's  existence. 

But  just  as  it  is  possible  to  recognize  the  distinction  between 
one's  own  mind  and  the  external  world,  and  to  feel  assured  of  the 
existence  of  both,  without  on  that  account  being  able  to  make 
clear  what  this  distinction  implies,  so  it  is  possible  to  recognize 
the  existence  of  other  minds  without  having  a  very  clear  conscious- 
ness of  just  what  one  means  by  these  words,  and  without  feeling 
able  to  defend  before  the  bar  of  reason  what  seems  to  be  one  of  the 
most  natural  beliefs  in  the  world. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  literature  that  we  arrive  at  a  knowledge 
of  the  existence  of  other  minds  by  a  process  of  inference.  That 
we  are  not  conscious  of  the  contents  of  other  minds  as  we  are  con- 
scious of  the  contents  of  our  own,  every  one  is  ready  to  admit. 
The  only  question  seems  to  be  as  to  the  precise  nature  of  the  infer- 
ence, and  as  to  its  justification.  We  have  seen  that,  to  a  man  who 
remains  upon  the  psychological  standpoint,  the  existence  of  the 
external  world  must  be  matter  of  inference,  and  we  have  also  seen 
that  the  inference  is  quite  without  justification.  He  has,  by  hypoth- 
esis, nothing  but  ideas  to  start  with,  and  he  can  end  with  noth- 
ing but  ideas,  for  there  is  nothing  in  his  experience  that  can  carry 

2  F  483 


434  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

him  from  idea  to  thing.  It  seems  fair  to  ask  whether  we  have  not 
something  similar  in  the  present  case  —  whether,  since  we  admit 
that  we  can  never  perceive  directly  what  is  in  another  mind,  and 
cannot  verify  our  inferences  by  observation,  we  must  not  also 
admit  that  our  belief  in  the  existence  of  other  minds  is  a  belief 
which  cannot  really  be  established  by  proofs  ?  If  I  could  once 
observe  a  connection  between  certain  experiences  of  my  own  and 
another  mind  —  not  infer  it,  but  actually  observe  it  —  such  an 
observed  connection  might  furnish  the  ground  for  a  multitude  of 
inferences ;  but  in  the  absence  of  even  a  single  observed  fact,  how 
can  I  proceed  without  being  plagued  by  the  consciousness  that 
the  whole  fabric  I  am  building  up  may  be  no  more  than  my  own 
dream  ? 

John  Stuart  Mill  thought  that  the  existence  of  other  minds 
could  be  proved,  and  he  has  presented  his  argument  in  his  usual 
clear  and  trenchant  style.  He  writes : 1  — 

"  By  what  evidence  do  I  know,  or  by  what  considerations  am  I 
led  to  believe,  that  there  exist  other  sentient  creatures ;  that  the 
walking  and  speaking  figures  which  I  see  and  hear,  have  sensa- 
tions and  thoughts,  or,  in  other  words,  possess  Minds?  The  most 
strenuous  Intuitionist  does  not  include  this  among  the  things  that 
I  know  by  direct  intuition.  I  conclude  it  from  certain  things, 
which  my  experience  of  my  own  states  of  feeling  proves  to  me  to 
be  marks  of  it.  These  marks  are  of  two  kinds,  antecedent  and 
subsequent;  the  previous  conditions  requisite  for  feeling,  and  the 
effects  or  consequences  of  it.  I  conclude  that  other  human  beings 
have  feelings  like  me,  because,  first,  they  have  bodies  like  me, 
which  1  know,  in  my  own  case,  to  be  the  antecedent  condition  of 
feelings ;  and  because,  secondly,  they  exhibit  the  acts,  and  other 
outward  signs,  which  in  my  own  case  I  know  by  experience  to  be 
caused  by  feelings.  I  am  conscious  in  myself  of  a  series  of  facts 
connected  by  a  uniform  sequence,  of  which  the  beginning  is  modi- 
fications of  my  body,  the  middle  is  feelings,  the  end  is  outward 
demeanor.  In  the  case  of  other  human  beings  I  have  the  evidence 
of  my  senses  for  the  first  and  last  links  of  the  series,  but  not  for 
the  intermediate  link.  I  find,  however,  that  the  sequence  between 
the  first  and  last  is  as  regular  and  constant  in  those  other  cases  as 
it  is  in  mine.  In  my  own  case  I  know  that  the  first  link  produces 
the  last  through  the  intermediate  link,  and  could  not  produce  it 
1 "  Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy,"  Chapter  XII. 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  435 

without.  Experience,  therefore,  obliges  me  to  conclude  that  there 
must  be  an  intermediate  link ;  which  must  either  be  the  same  in 
others  as  in  myself,  or  a  different  one.  I  must  either  believe  them 
to  be  alive,  or  to  be  automatons ;  and  by  believing  them  to  be 
alive,  that  is,  by  supposing  the  link  to  be  of  the  same  nature  as  in 
the  case  of  which  I  have  experience,  and  which  is  in  all  respects 
similar,  I  bring  other  human  beings,  as  phenomena,  under  the  same 
generalizations  which  I  know  by  experience  to  be  the  true  theory 
of  my  own  existence.  And  in  doing  so  I  conform  to  the  legiti- 
mate rules  of  experimental  inquiry.  The  process  is  exactly 
parallel  to  that  by  which  Newton  proved  that  the  force  which 
keeps  the  planets  in  their  orbits  is  identical  with  that  by  which  an 
apple  falls  to  the  ground.  It  was  not  incumbent  on  Newton 
to  prove  the  impossibility  of  its  being  any  other  force ;  he  was 
thought  to  have  made  out  his  point  when  he  had  simply  shown 
that  no  other  force  need  be  supposed.  We  know  the  existence  of 
other  beings  by  generalization  from  the  knowledge  of  our  own ; 
the  generalization  merely  postulates  that  what  experience  shows 
to  be  a  mark  of  the  existence  of  something  within  the  sphere  of 
our  consciousness,  may  be  concluded  to  be  a  mark  of  the  same 
thing  beyond  that  sphere." 

In  criticising  another  extract  taken  from  Mill1  I  have  pointed 
out  that  he  slurs  over  the  distinction  between  the  mind  and  the 
world  by  absorbing  the  world  into  the  mind  and  identifying  exter- 
nal objects  with  small  and  definite  portions  "  of  the  series  which,  in 
its  entireness,  forms  my  conscious  existence."  When  we  bear  in 
mind  what  human  bodies  must  mean  to  him  after  he  has  done  this, 
we  cannot  but  be  nonplussed  by  his  argument  for  other  minds. 
At  first  sight  it  does  not  seem  unreasonable  to  say  that  I  know  by 
experience  that  my  body  is  an  antecedent  condition  of  my  feelings, 
and  that  motions  of  my  body  are  effects  or  consequences  of  my 
feelings.  It  seems  equally  reasonable  to  maintain  that,  when  I  see 
another  human  body  acted  upon  by  something,  and  then  observe  a 
certain  kind  of  reaction,  I  may  argue  by  analogy  to  a  link  of  feel- 
ings between  the  two.  But  let  us  remember  that  we  are,  for  the 
moment,  disciples  of  Mill,  and  let  us  scrutinize  the  two  statements. 

May  we  really  maintain  that  experience  presents  us  with  the 
chain  of  three  links  indicated  by  Mill?  Does  experience  reveal  to 
me  as  standing  in  a  certain  relation  of  antecedence  and  consequence 

i  See  Chapter  XXIII. 


436  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

(1)  my  body,  (2)  my  consciousness,  and  (3)  changes  in  my  body  ? 
I  have  discovered  that  my  body  and  the  changes  in  my  body,  or, 
to  be  a  little  more  accurate,  my  body  in  one  condition  and  my  body 
in  some  other  condition,  are  nothing  more  than  definite  groups  of 
my  feelings,  i.e.  parts  of  consciousness,  and  it  seems  absurd  to 
interpolate  my  consciousness  as  a  whole  between  them.  In  com- 
mon speech  it  would  not  be  tolerated  if  the  plain  man  said,  "  I 
perceive  that  all  that  I  perceive  is  an  intermediate  link  between 
two  states  of  a  thing  that  I  perceive."  The  psychologist  would 
frown  upon  the  statement  that  the  whole  of  a  man's  consciousness 
is  perceived  by  him  to  be  an  intermediate  link  between  two  of  his 
percepts.  It  is  no  whit  more  sensible  for  the  metaphysician  to  say 
such  things  than  it  is  for  another  man ;  and  when  he  finds  that  he 
has  said  such  a  thing,  it  only  remains  for  him  to  retract  it. 

Thus  we  see  that,  in  turning  the  external  world  into  "feel- 
ings," Mill  has  lost  the  first  and  the  last  of  the  three  links,  furnished 
by  experience,  which  are  to  make  possible  an  analogical  argument 
which  will  result  in  other  minds.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  tele- 
phone exchange  absorbed  by  the  clerk.  He  cannot  discover  him- 
self to  be  an  intermediate  link  between  two  wires,  when  both  the 
wires  are  discovered  to  be  in  him.  And  this  absorption  of  the 
telephone  exchange  is  as  fatal  to  the  notion  of  subscribers  as  it  is 
to  that  of  wires.  If  I  stand  at  one  end  of  a  wire,  and  a  subscriber 
stands  at  the  other  end  of  the  same  wire,  the  relation  between  us 
is  a  conceivable  one.  We  are  at  least  in  the  one  world.  But  if 
each  has  a  world  to  himself  —  a  world  with  its  own  space  and  time, 
a  world  wholly  disconnected  with  every  other  —  it  seems  absurd 
to  speak  of  relations  between  such,  and  to  attempt  to  pass  in  any 
sense  of  the  word  from  one  such  world  to  another. 

Now  we  must  not  forget  that,  to  the  disciple  of  Mill,  everything 
that  I  can  perceive  must  take  its  place  among  my  feelings.  More- 
over, we  must  remember  that  "the  particular  series  of  feelings 
which  constitutes  my  own  life  is  confined  to  myself;  no  other 
sentient  being  shares  it  with  me."  This  means  that  no  one  of 
the  things  that  I  can  perceive  is  in  his  world,  and  no  one  of  the 
things  that  he  can  perceive  is  in  mine.  His  body  is  my  percept ; 
the  changes  in  his  body  are  my  percepts.  Shall  I  place  as  an 
intermediate  link  between  two  of  my  percepts  his  consciousness, 
a  consciousness  similar  to  my  own?  This  means  that  between  two 
states  of  a  small  object  in  the  world  I  perceive,  I  am  to  place  as  an 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  437 

intermediate  link  a  whole  world  like  the  one  I  perceive.  What 
does  it  mean  to  place  such  a  world  between  the  two  ?  Simply 
nothing  at  all.  As  well  try  to  patch  the  space  I  know  with  a  space 
admittedly  discontinuous  with  it. 

It  may  be  objected  that  this  interpolation  must  at  least  not  be 
conceived  to  be  of  a  material  sort ;  that  Mill  is  not  talking  about 
material  things,  but  about  feelings.  I  answer,  It  is  not  easy  to 
distinguish  between  the  two,  when  one  has  turned  material  things 
into  feelings.  But  the  objection  has,  at  least,  so  much  weight ; 
the  world  interpolated  is  not  to  become  a  part  of  the  world  in 
which  it  is  to  play  the  role  of  an  intermediate  link.  This  I  have 
recognized  in  the  above  illustration,  in  remarking  that  the  new 
space  which  is  to  be  made  an  intermediate  link  between  two  parts 
of  the  old  is  discontinuous  with  the  old.  One  may  move  in  every 
direction  through  the  old  without  anywhere  meeting  it.  It  seems 
quite  fair  in  such  a  case  to  ask  what  is  meant  by  calling  it  an 
intermediate  link ;  and  it  seems  quite  clear  that  one  must  accept 
the  echo  of  one's  question  for  an  answer. 

But  if  it  is  desired  to  avoid  such  words  as  "  world "  and 
"  object,"  and  to  speak  only  of  "  feelings  "  and  "states  of  conscious- 
ness," I  have  no  objection  to  the  change.  I  insist,  however,  that 
the  interjection  of  the  intermediate  link  remains  as  mere  a  form 
of  words  as  before.  That  another  man's  mind  should  be  an 
intermediate  link  between  two  groups  of  my  feelings  can  seem  to 
be  a  satisfactory  statement  only  to  the  man  to  whom  strings  of 
vocables  seem  precious  in  themselves  considered.  What  does  it 
mean  to  be  such  an  intermediate  link  ?  My  feelings  as  a  whole 
are  absolutely  cut  off  from  the  feelings  of  another  man  ;  his  feelings 
as  a  whole  are  absolutely  cutoff  from  mine.  What  can  I  mean  by 
a  link  that  is  absolutely  cut  off  from  the  things  it  is  supposed  to 
link  ?  The  sentence  appears  to  be  mere  noise.  And  if  one  is 
tempted  to  drop  the  word  "  link,"  and  say,  instead,  certain  changes 
in  my  feelings  "  reveal  the  presence  "  of  another  consciousness,  I 
ask  :  What  can  one  possibly  mean  by  the  word  "  presence "  in 
such  a  connection  ?  In  what  sense  can  the  new  space  be  said  to 
be  present  to  some  part  of  the  old,  when  it  has  been  declared 
discontinuous  with  it  ?  I  may  be  permitted  the  figure,  for  the 
analogy  is  a  close  one. 

The  difficulty  of  conceiving  the  relation  between  two  conscious- 
nesses was  much  more  vividly  perceived  by  Clifford  than  it  was  by 


438  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

Mill,  and  it  stares  us  very  directly  in  the  face  in  his  doctrine  of 
ejects.  He  writes  as  follows  : 1  — 

"The  inferences  of  physical  science  are  all  inferences  of  my 
real  or  possible  feelings;  inferences  of  something  actually  or  poten- 
tially in  my  consciousness,  not  of  anything  outside  of  it. 

"  There  are,  however,  some  inferences  which  are  profoundly 
different  from  those  of  physical  science.  When  I  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  you  are  conscious,  and  that  there  are  objects  in 
your  consciousness  similar  to  those  in  mine,  I  am  not  inferring  any 
actual  or  possible  feelings  of  my  own,  but  your  feelings,  which  are 
not,  and  cannot  by  any  possibility  become,  objects  in  my  conscious- 
ness. The  complicated  processes  of  your  body  and  the  motions  of 
your  brain  and  nervous  system,  inferred  from  evidence  of  anatom- 
ical researches,  are  all  inferred  as  things  possibly  visible  to  me. 
However  remote  the  inference  of  physical  science,  the  thing 
inferred  is  always  a  part  of  me,  a  possible  set  of  changes  in  my 
consciousness  bound  up  in  the  objective  order  with  other  known 
changes.  But  the  inferred  existence  of  your  feelings,  of  objective 
groupings  among  them  similar  to  those  among  my  feelings,  and  of 
a  subjective  order  in  many  respects  analogous  to  my  own,  —  these 
inferred  existences  are  in  the  very  act  of  inference  thrown  out  of 
my  consciousness,  recognized  as  outside  of  it,  as  not  being  a  part 
of  me.  I  propose,  accordingly,  to  call  these  inferred  existences 
ejects,  things  thrown  out  of  my  consciousness,  to  distinguish  them 
from  objects,  things  presented  in  my  consciousness,  phenomena. 
It  is  to  be  noticed  that  there  is  a  set  of  changes  of  my  conscious- 
ness symbolic  of  the  eject,  which  may  be  called  my  conception  of 
you ;  it  is  ([  think)  a  rough  picture  of  the  whole  aggregate  of  my 
consciousness,  under  imagined  circumstances  like  yours  ;  qud  group 
of  my  feelings,  this  conception  is  like  the  object  in  substance  and 
constitution,  but  differs  from  it  in  implying  the  existence  of  some- 
thing that  is  not  itself,  but  corresponds  to  it,  namely,  of  the  eject. 
The  existence  of  the  object,  whether  perceived  or  inferred,  carries 
with  it  a  group  of  beliefs ;  these  are  always  beliefs  in  the  future 
sequence  of  certain  of  my  feelings.  The  existence  of  this  table, 
for  example,  as  an  object  in  my  consciousness,  carries  with  it  the 
belief  that  if  I  climb  up  on  it  I  shall  be  able  to  walk  about  on  it 
as  if  it  were  the  ground.  Hut  the  existence  of  my  conception  of 
you  in  my  consciousness  carries  with  it  a  belief  in  the  existence  of 
1 "  On  the  Nature  of  Things-in-Themselves. " 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  439 

you  outside  of  my  consciousness,  a  belief  which  can  never  be 
expressed  in  terras  of  the  future  sequence  of  my  feelings.  How 
this  inference  is  justified,  how  consciousness  can  testify  to  the 
existence  of  anything  outside  of  itself,  I  do  not  pretend  to  say :  I 
need  not  untie  a  knot  which  the  world  has  cut  for  me  long  ago. 
It  may  very  well  be  that  I  myself  am  the  only  existence,  but  it  is 
simply  ridiculous  to  suppose  that  anybody  else  is.  The  position 
of  absolute  idealism  may,  therefore,  be  left  out  of  count,  although 
each  individual  may  be  unable  to  justify  his  dissent  from  it." 

In  this  passage  much  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  fact,  also 
insisted  upon  by  Mill,  that  the  whole  world  perceived  or  perceiv- 
able by  me  must  be  regarded  as  nothing  else  than  "  my  feelings." 
The  distinction  between  my  feelings  and  the  feelings  of  another  is 
made  so  clear  that  it  is  impossible  to  obliterate  it  —  the  gulf  is 
made  impassable.  It  is,  therefore,  but  natural  that  Clifford  should 
recognize  that  he  cannot  logically  bridge  it.  I  cannot  step  from 
my  body  to  my  consciousness  and  from  that  to  my  body  again,  and, 
with  the  impetus  thus  acquired,  step  from  the  body  of  another  man 
to  his  consciousness  and  then  to  his  body,  as  Mill  would  have  me. 
Both  my  body  and  his  body  are  phenomena  in  my  consciousness, 
and  when  I  make  an  attempt  to  step  out  of  my  consciousness,  I 
find  that  I  do  not  know  even  how  to  begin.  It  is  precisely  as 
though  I  were  to  attempt  to  step,  from  the  space  in  which  I  live 
and  move,  into  another  space  which  can  form  no  part  of  the  space 
which  lies  around  me.  In  what  direction  shall  I  step  ?  Evidently, 
in  none  ;  for  every  direction  leads  to  more  space  of  just  the  kind 
that  I  am  not  seeking.  Yet  I  must  step  in  some  direction,  for  a 
step  that  is  not  in  any  direction  cannot  by  the  extremest  stretch  of 
courtesy  be  called  a  step  at  all.  And  just  as  little  can  an  inference 
that  is  both  groundless  and  meaningless  be  called  an  inference. 

It  is  odd  that  Clifford,  having  declared  his  gulf  impassable, 
should  remark  that  we  need  not  worry  over  difficulties  that  lie 
behind  us,  and  may  content  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that  we 
all  passed  over  this  gulf  long  ago.  This  is  a  return  to  com- 
mon sense  with  a  vengeance,  and  would,  if  consistently  adhered 
to,  make  short  work  of  the  reasonings  of  the  philosophers.  The 
Zenonic  puzzles  touching  the  infinite  divisibility  of  space  would 
disappear  like  magic.  Does  not  every  one  know  that  spaces  are 
passed  over  and  that  minutes  come  to  an  end?  The  external 
world  would  be  rehabilitated.  Does  not  every  one  know  that 


440  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm,  of  Minds 

chairs  and  tables  are  not  feelings  and  cannot  by  any  sane  man  be 
mistaken  for  feelings?  The  men  who  rashly  declare  that  minds 
are  the  only  realities  would  be  roughly  put  in  their  place  — 
among  them  Clifford,  whose  doctrine  of  things-in-themselves 
would  be  unable  to  obtain  even  a  hearing. 

It  seems  as  odd  that,  after  finding  the  gulf  impassable,  Clif- 
ford should  have  fallen  back  in  the  same  essay  upon  the  bridge 
approved  by  Mill,  and  have  elaborated  an  argument  for  passing 
from  minds  to  bodies  and  from  bodies  to  minds,  even  formulating 
a  rule-of-three  method  of  discovering  the  exact  contents  of  other 
minds.1  That  he  did  so  simply  shows  that  men  are  impelled,  when 
they  find  that  the  logical  consequences  of  their  doctrines  are  re- 
pellent to  common  sense,  to  repudiate  those  consequences  whether 
they  can  find  a  justification  for  doing  so  or  whether  they  cannot. 
By  hook  or  by  crook  Descartes  and  Locke  were  determined  to  hold 
on  to  an  external  world ;  by  hook  or  by  crook  Clifford  was  deter- 
mined not  to  be  a  solipsist,  the  sole  inhabitant  of  a  solitary  world  — 
perhaps  I  would  better  say,  was  determined  not  to  be  that  solitary 
world.  To  all  three  it  seemed  absurd  to  act  otherwise. 

And,  indeed,  solipsism  does  seem  an  absurdity  unworthy  of  a 
serious  mind.  The  dreary  situation  of  the  man  who  believes  him- 
self to  be  his  own  and  sole  universe  has  been  pictured  in  character- 
istic style  by  Jean  Paul  Richter : — 

"  The  very  worst  of  it  all  is  the  lazy,  aimless,  aristocratic,  insu- 
lar life  that  a  god  must  lead ;  he  has  no  one  to  go  with.  If  I  am 
not  to  sit  still  for  all  time  and  eternity,  if  I  let  myself  down  as  well 
as  I  can  and  make  myself  finite,  that  I  may  have  something  in  the 
way  of  society,  still  I  have,  like  petty  princes,  only  my  own  crea- 
tures to  echo  my  words.  .  .  .  Every  being,  even  the  highest  Being, 
wishes  something  to  love  and  to  honor.  But  the  Fichtean  doctrine 
that  I  am  my  own  body-maker  leaves  me  with  nothing  whatever  — • 
with  not  so  much  as  the  beggar's  dog  or  the  prisoner's  spider.  .  .  . 
Truly  I  wish  that  there  were  men,  and  that  I  was  one  of  them.  .  .  . 
If  there  exists,  as  I  very  much  fear,  no  one  but  myself,  unlucky 
dog  that  I  am,  then  there  is  no  one  at  such  a  pass  as  I.  The  only 
enthusiasm  left  me  is  logical  enthusiasm  —  all  my  metaphysics, 
chemistry,  technology,  nosology,  botany,  entomology,  are  summed 
up  in  the  old  adage  :  Know  Thyself.  I  am  not  merely,  as  Bellar- 
min  says,  my  own  Saviour,  but  also  my  own  Devil,  Executioner, 
1 1  have  discussed  this  at  length  in  Chapter  XXI. 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  441 

and  Master  of  the  Knout.  .  .  .  Around  me  stretches  humanity 
turned  to  stone.  In  the  gloomy  uninhabited  void  glows  no  love, 
no  admiration,  no  prayer,  no  hope,  no  aim.  I  am  so  wholly  alone ; 
nowhere  a  heart-beat ;  no  life,  nothing,  about  me ;  and  without  me 
nothing  but  nothing.  .  .  .  Who  hears  my  wail,  and  who  knows 
me  now  ?  Ego.  Who  will  hear  it,  and  who  will  know  me  to  all 
eternity  ?  Ego."  1 

Richter's  eloquence  is,  to  be  sure,  too  generous  to  the  solipsist, 
for  he  who  has  become  the  whole  universe  cannot  in  decency  speak 
of  humanity  as  around  him  turned  to  stone.  There  is  no  "  around 
him  "  —  the  words  are  nonsense.  Nor  can  he  desire  to  associate 
with  any  one  else.  It  is  mere  absurdity  to  speak  of  one  universe 
as  associating  with  another.  How  shall  they  begin  their  billing 
and  cooing  when  they  have  not  even  the  same  space  and  time  ? 
Evidently  the  solipsist  is  a  man  who  declares  himself  to  be  the 
universe,  without  wholly  letting  go  the  old  common-sense  notion 
of  selves  as  things  belonging  to  the  one  universe,  and  capable  of 
standing  in  some  sort  of  relation  to  each  other.  From  a  philosoph- 
ical point  of  view,  it  would  have  been  better  had  Jean  Paul  not 
attempted  to  prove  the  solipsist  a  miserable  creature,  but  rather 
had  he  pointed  out  that  he  is  a  logical  absurdity,  an  impossible 
creature,  one  who  has  no  right  to  be  an  "  ipsist "  at  all. 

Richter  grants  the  solipsist  too  much,  and  in  granting  it  he 
appears  to  admit  that  the  existence  of  other  minds  is  not  precisely 
a  thing  to  be  proved,  but  rather  a  postulate.  It  has  seemed  to 
many  acute  minds  that  it  is  not  precisely  a  thing  to  be  proved. 
Sometimes  one  meets  with  the  explicit  admission  that,  although 
it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  proved,  yet  we  are  justified  in  assuming  it 
as  the  result  of  an  argument  from  analogy  —  a  position  which  sets 
one  to  wondering  what  we  are  to  understand  by  the  use  of  the 
word  "justified."  "  It  must  be  premised,"  writes  Professor  Huxley, 
"  that  it  is  wholly  impossible  absolutely  to  prove  the  presence  or 
absence  of  consciousness  in  anything  but  one's  own  brain,  though 
by  analogy,  we  are  justified  in  assuming  its  existence  in  other 
men."  2 

The  analogical  argument  which  is  to  furnish  this  justification 
is  the  argument  set  forth  by  Mill  —  we  have  body,  mind,  and  body, 
in  our  own  case  ;  and  we  assume  the  chain,  body,  mind,  body,  in 

i  "  Werke,"  ed.  Reimer,  Berlin,  1827,  Bd.  XXX,  ss.  65-68. 
3  "  Collected  Essays,"  X.  Y.,  1902,  Vol.  I,  p.  219. 


442  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

the  case  of  others.  The  argument  for  other  minds  always  does 
come  back  to  this,  no  matter  who  employs  it,  or  how  small  his  right 
to  employ  it  may  be.  It  is  the  argument  of  Berkeley,  of  Mill,  of 
Clifford,  of  Huxley ;  and  yet  no  one  of  these  men  had  the  least 
right  to  it,  for  no  one  of  them  could  pass  from  body  to  conscious- 
ness, and  from  consciousness  to  body,  after  absorbing  the  body  into 
the  consciousness.  That  they  all  clung  to  it  in  spite  of  their  philo- 
sophical opinions,  clung  to  it  as  tenaciously  as  the  plain  man  clings 
to  his  belief  that  minds  are  revealed  by  bodies,  and  that  a  body 
which  acts  as  does  his  own  reveals  a  mind  like  his  own,  suggests 
that  there  may  be  more  in  the  argument  than  they  seem  to  have 
gotten  out  of  it. 

And,  indeed,  there  is  more  in  the  argument.  The  idealist 
spoils  it  by  reducing  his  chain  of  three  links  to  one.  As  he  turns 
all  things  into  the  mind,  there  remains  nothing  to  which  he  can 
relate  his  own  mind  or  any  other.  If  we  avoid  this  error,  and  if 
we  interpret  the  argument  aright,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
repudiate  it.  It  is  nothing  more  than  an  explicit  statement  of  an 
inference  implicitly  recognized  as  reasonable  by  the  plain  man 
every  day  of  his  life ;  and  recognized  as  reasonable  by  no  arbitrary 
act  of  volition,  but  seen  to  be  justified  by  experience  in  an  intelli- 
gible sense  of  the  word. 

The  plain  man  does  not  suppose  the  material  world  upon  which 
he  gazes  to  be  in  his  mind.  On  the  contrary,  he  supposes  his  mind 
to  be  in  the  world,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  it  will  not  do  to  ask 
him  too  many  questions  about  the  precise  meaning  of  this  "  in." 
He  believes  that  he  can  pass  from  the  world  to  his  mind  and  from 
his  mind  to  the  world,  as,  indeed,  he  can.  And  as  he  conceives 
his  mind  to  be  in  the  world  —  in  a  definite  part  of  the  world,  his 
body  —  so  he  conceives  other  minds  to  be  in  the  world,  i.e.  to  be 
in  other  bodies.  Minds  are  all  about  him ;  they  are  not  banished 
to  separate  universes,  but  form  one  community.  He  admits  that 
he  cannot  directly  perceive  another  mind,  but  he  thinks  he  can 
locate  it  in  an  indefinite  sort  of  a  way,  at  least ;  and  he  never 
dreams  of  thinking  that  he  stands  alone. 

If  we  will  examine  the  argument  of  Mill,  or  of  any  other 
idealist  who  has  fairly  faced  this  problem,  we  shall  see  that  he,  too, 
falls  back  upon  the  external  world  as  does  the  plain  man.  In  the 
same  passage  in  which  Mill  tells  me  that  my  notion  of  myself  "  in- 
cludes all  possibilities  of  sensation,  definite  or  indefinite,  certified 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  443 

by  experience  or  not,  which  I  may  imagine  inserted  in  the  series  of 
my  actual  and  conscious  states,"  he  also  informs  me  that  "  the 
Possibilities  of  Sensation  which  are  called  outward  objects,  are 
possibilities  of  it  to  other  beings  as  well  as  to  me."  How  is  it  pos- 
sible that  a  part  of  my  mind  should  also  be  a  part  of  another  mind? 
Is  not  the  series  of  feelings  which  constitutes  my  own  life  confined 
to  myself  ?  Can  I  perceive  directly  even  a  part  of  another  mind  ? 
It  seems  very  clear  that  the  "outward  objects  "  thus  recognized  by 
Mill  must  be  something  distinct  from  feelings  simply.  Feelings 
as  feelings  are  never  shared ;  they  are  felt  by  one,  and  inferred  by 
another.  This  Mill  has  clearly  recognized ;  he  ought  in  consist- 
ency to  acknowledge  explicitly,  as  he  has  acknowledged  implicitly, 
that  the  external  objects  among  which  the  body  is  to  be  classed  are 
not  feelings. 

The  truth  is,  that  such  writers  as  Mill  and  Clifford  give  no  un- 
equivocal recognition  to  the  objective  order  of  experience,  although 
it  is  abundantly  evident  that  they  are  forced  to  give  it  an  involun- 
tary and  more  or  less  ambiguous  recognition.  To  declare  that  the 
things  with  which  physical  science  concerns  itself  are  "  always  a 
part  of  me  "  is  to  deny  such  an  order  altogether.  It  is  to  recognize 
only  the  subjective  order.  But  if  we  will  recognize  only  one  side 
of  a  door,  we  must  admit  that  the  thing  we  recognize  cannot  be 
recognized  as  one  side  of  a  door.  We  must  smuggle  in  the  other, 
somehow,  in  order  to  keep  the  side  we  have  the  thing  it  is.  It  is 
this  that  is  done  by  Pearson,  when  he  finds  a  sufficiency  of  mystery 
in  the  universe  of  sensation  which  contains  "little  corners  of  con- 
sciousness." x  This  universe  of  sensation  is  the  external  world,  the 
objective  order,  grudgingly  acknowledged  to  be  external  and  ob- 
jective ;  and  the  corners  of  consciousness  are  minds.  If  we  will 
unequivocally  deny  the  universe  of  sensation,  our  corners  will  cease 
to  be  corners,  i.e.  to  be  minds.  They  will  have  none  of  the  ear- 
marks by  which  a  mind  is  known  to  be  such. 

But  if  we  will  frankly  recognize  the  objective  order,  we  need 
not  fall  into  such  embarrassments,  nor  will  it  seem  inconceivable 
that  there  should  be  a  realm  of  minds.  The  plain  man  distin- 
guishes between  the  world,  his  own  mind,  and  other  minds.  To 
deny  the  existence  of  any  one  of  these  seems  to  him  to  be  insane. 
This  is  not  the  opinion  of  a  man  here  and  there ;  it  is  the  opinion 
of  the  race.  Science  recognizes  it  as  justifiable ;  the  physical  sci- 

i  See  Chapter  XXII. 


444  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

ences  occupy  themselves  with  the  world  of  matter,  and  never  sup- 
pose that  their  inferences  have  anything  to  do  with  your  feelings 
or  mine ;  the  science  of  psychology  does  suppose  itself  to  be  con- 
cerned with  your  feelings  and  mine,  even  with  the  objective  order 
as  revealed  in  our  consciousness,  and  does  not  regard  itself  as  tres- 
passing upon  the  field  of  physical  science.  These  distinctions  it  is 
surely  not  the  duty  of  the  metaphysician  to  obliterate.  It  is  his 
business  to  analyze  such  conceptions  as  "  the  external  world,"  "  my 
mind,"  and  "  other  minds."  If  the  result  of  his  efforts  is  a  chaos 
in  which  they  all  disappear,  he  should  admit  that  there  is  more 
sense  in  common  sense  than  there  is  in  his  metaphysics,  and  he 
should  take  a  fresh  sheet  and  begin  again. 

Now,  we  have  seen  that  the  distinction  recognized  by  the  plain 
man  between  his  mind  and  the  external  world  is  a  perfectly  just 
distinction.  It  is  a  recognition  of  the  subjective  order  of  experi- 
ence and  of  the  objective  order.  Neither  his  mind  nor  the  exter- 
nal world  is  arbitrarily  assumed  by  him  to  exist.  Both  are  given, 
i.e.  there  are  experiences  which  arrange  themselves  in  the  two 
orders,  and  the  one  order  is  not  more  immediately  given  than  the 
other. 

We  have  also  seen  that  the  plain  man  is  not  wholly  in  the 
wrong  in  maintaining  that  his  mind  is  in  his  body.  He  is  apt  to 
take  this  in  too  literally,  but  in  speaking  as  he  does  he  is  recogniz- 
ing the  fact  that  it  is  the  reference  to  his  body  that  marks  the 
phenomena  of  the  subjective  order,  and  distinguishes  them  from 
those  of  the  objective.  It  is  precisely  this  distinction  that  is  ad- 
mitted by  Mill  when  he  speaks  of  passing  from  body  to  conscious- 
ness and  from  consciousness  back  to  body.  He  is  recognizing  an 
objective  order  and  a  subjective  order,  and  is  recognizing,  too,  that 
the  body  is,  so  to  speak,  their  point  of  contact. 

But  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  not  to  confuse  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  two  orders  even  for  a  moment.  One  must  never  forget 
that  a  percept  of  the  body  is  not  the  body,  and  that  the  body  is 
never  a  percept.  Hence  the  man  who  speaks  of  passing  from  body 
to  mind  and  from  mind  to  body  again,  i.e.  the  man  who  is  endeav- 
oring explicitly  to  recognize  both  orders  and  their  relation,  must 
never  admit  that  in  passing  from  body  to  mind  and  from  mind  to 
body  lie  is  remaining  within  the  charmed  circle  of  Himself.  To 
say  this  is  to  deny  that  there  arc  two  orders.  His  consciousness,  or 
himself,  is  a  thing  made  up  of  percepts  and  various  other  mental 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  445 

phenomena ;  it  is  perceived  to  be  related  to  a  body,  and  through 
that  body  to  a  whole  world  of  other  material  things,  but  it  contains 
no  material  thing  whatever.  Its  relation  to  the  body  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  conveniently  symbolized  by  the  psychologist  under  the 
figure  of  parallelism  :  it  is  the  halo  and  the  body  is  the  saint.  To 
speak  of  the  halo  as  containing  this  saint  and  all  others  is  nonsense. 
No  halo  can  do  this  and  still  be  a  halo. 

There  is,  then,  an  external  world,  and  it  contains  a  great  many 
saints.  Shall  our  plain  man  grant  to  each  of  them  a  halo,  or  shall 
he  maintain  that  he  alone  is  thus  crowned,  and  that  all  the  rest  go 
bare-headed  ?  It  should  be  observed  that,  in  asking  him  to  crown 
them  all  we  are  not  asking  him  to  perform  an  inconceivable  feat. 
Of  course,  if  the  whole  external  world  is  assumed  to  be  a  part  of 
his  mind,  he  cannot  relegate  his  mind  to  this  part  of  the  external 
world  and  another  mind  to  that  part.  If  all  saints  really  are  in 
his  halo,  it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  allowing  them  similar  halos  of 
their  own.  But  since  such  an  assumption  is  palpably  absurd,  and 
since  there  really  are  many  saints,  why  not  grant  to  each  his  halo  ? 
It  cannot  be  maintained  that  the  relation  of  body  and  mind  is 
an  inconceivable  one  ;  for  the  relation  of  one  mind  to  one  body  is 
given  in  experience,  and  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  a  similar  rela- 
tion should  hold  between  other  minds  and  other  bodies.  One  may 
fall  back  upon  the  figure  employed  by  the  parallelist,  and  conceive 
of  a  whole  series  of  halos  as  related  to  a  whole  series  of  bodies, 
and  as,  through  these  bodies,  related  to  each  other. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  admitted  that  this  is  a  perfectly  thinkable 
scheme  —  that  the  construction  is  not  an  impossible  one  —  and 
will,  nevertheless,  be  maintained  that  the  existence  of  these  other 
minds  can  never  be  proved.  Mill  appears  to  arrive  at  his  conclu- 
sion, notwithstanding  his  avowed  separation  of  minds  from  each 
other,  and  notwithstanding  his  denial  of  a  world  properly  external, 
by  putting  minds  very  literally  into  the  one  world,  and  by  making 
them  parts  of  it  much  as  though  they  were  material  things.  He 
passes  from  body,  as  antecedent,  to  consciousness  as  a  consequence  ; 
and  from  consciousness  as  a  condition,  to  bodily  motions  as  its 
effects.  The  mind  is  thus  recognized  as  a  link  in  a  series  of 
causes  and  effects. 

But  when  one  has  recognized  that  mind  must  not  be  material- 
ized, and  has  adopted  the  parallelistic  scheme,  must  one  not  abandon 
this  argument  ?  For  example,  I  stand  opposite  another  man's  body  ; 


446  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

it  is  at  rest ;  I  stick  a  pin  into  it ;  it  turns  about  and  protests  vehe- 
mently. If  I  recognize  the  universe  of  matter  to  be  a  perfect 
mechanism,  must  I  not  admit  that  the  whole  reaction  which  I  sum 
up  as  his  protest  is  susceptible  of  a  purely  mechanical  explanation  ? 
The  dilated  chest,  the  clenched  fist,  the  flashing  eye,  the  quivering 
nostril,  the  interrupted  breath  which  sends  its  message  to  my  ear  as 
articulate  speech  —  are  not  all  these  the  effects  of  motions  in  mat- 
ter, and  of  nothing  else?  From  pin-point  to  profanity  there  is  an 
unbroken  path,  from  which  I  wander  merely  through  ignorance. 
At  what  point  in  such  a  series  of  causes  and  effects  can  I  interject 
a  mind?  A  mind  can  have  no  place  in  such  a  series.  Why,  then, 
assume  a  mind  at  all  ? 

One  need  not,  however,  throw  away  Mill's  argument  merely 
because  it  has  taken  a  materialistic  turn.  Its  force  lies  in  allow- 
ing to  other  bodies  minds  related  to  them  as  we  conceive  our  own 
mind  to  be  related  to  our  body.  If  he  has  misconceived  this  rela- 
tion, we  should  correct  the  misconception,  and  hold  to  what  is 
good  in  his  argument. 

If  I  regard  the  material  world  as  a  perfect  mechanism,  and 
employ  the  figure  of  parallelism  to  symbolize  the  relation  of  mind 
to  body,  I  must,  of  course,  admit  that  no  bodily  movement,  no 
word,  and  no  gesture  of  the  man  at  whom  I  am  looking,  can  be 
referred  to  his  mind  as  an  effect  is  referred  to  its  cause.  But  if  I 
hold  this  position,  consistency  compels  me  to  admit  that  my  own 
words  and  gestures  are  equally  the  result  of  mechanical  causes, 
and  that  no  one  of  them  can  be  referred  to  my  own  mind  as  its 
effect.  This  does  not  in  the  least  compel  me  to  deny  that  there  is 
a  subjective  order  of  experience  and  an  objective  order.  It  means 
merely  that  I  hold  carefully  to  the  distinction  between  the  two, 
and  do  not  obliterate  it  by  heedlessly  making  the  subjective  order 
a  part  of  the  objective  —  by  putting  my  mind  into  my  body  in  a 
material  way.  My  mind  and  my  body  are  given  in  experience,  and 
their  observed  relations  are  symbolized  in  the  statement  that  my 
mind  is  parallel  to  my  body,  and  is  not  a  thing  in  interaction 
with  it. 

Now  I  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  parallelist  is  a  man 
of  robust  faith.  He  speaks  of  a  point-for-point  correspondence 
between  mind  and  brain,  and  he  really  knows  scarcely  anything  of 
what  takes  place  in  his  brain  when  he  is  having  this  or  that  mental 
experience.  Of  the  two  parallels,  the  mental  one  is  vastly  the 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  447 

better  known,  unsatisfactory  as  may  be  our  knowledge  even  of 
that  one.  I  may  be  the  most  ardent  parallelist,  and  yet,  when 
I  come  to  explain  my  actions,  I  may  pass  over  in  silence  the 
cerebral  changes  which  I  believe  to  correspond  to  my  mental 
states. 

I  have  boxed  a  man's  ears ;  why  did  I  do  it  ?  He  called  me 
a  fool ;  that  was  exasperating,  to  begin  with.  Then  I  called  to 
mind  the  fact  that  he  was  guilty  of  this  indiscretion  once  before, 
and  that  on  various  other  occasions  he  had  given  expression  to  his 
contempt  for  my  person  in  an  unmistakable  way.  It  is  to  these 
things  that  I  refer  in  accounting  for  my  violence.  Parallelist  or 
not,  I  cannot  point  out  the  particular  cerebral  disturbances  which 
were  the  mechanical  antecedents  of  my  action,  for  I  have  not  the 
faintest  idea  how  they  differ  from  the  cerebral  disturbances  which 
would  have  led  me  to  fall  on  his  neck  and  forgive  him.  My 
attention  is  taken  up,  as  it  must  be,  with  my  percepts,  memories, 
and  emotions,  and  not  with  my  bodily  mechanism. 

And  just  as  I  can  use  the  contents  of  my  mind  as  a  bridge  to 
pass  from  words  which  reach  my  ear  to  the  movement  of  my  arm, 
so  I  can  and  do  connect  by  a  similar  bridge  certain  changes 
brought  about  in  another  man's  body  with  certain  other  changes 
analogous  to  what  I  recognize  in  my  own  case  to  be  purposeful 
movements.  In  neither  case  need  I  regard  the  bridge  as  literally 
a  part  of  the  mechanical  series.  We  have  seen  that  it  is  nonsense 
to  do  so.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  recognition  of  such 
bridges  serves  to  explain,  in  an  intelligible  sense  of  the  word,  the 
actions  of  other  men.  They  are  assimilated  to  actions  of  our  own ; 
by  casting  about  in  our  own  minds  we  can  see  that  something,  not 
evidently  a  factor  in  the  occurrence,  must  be  assumed  to  be  present 
and  to  be  determinative  of  the  result.  A  boy  has  received  forty 
strokes  instead  of  ten ;  the  punishment  seems  to  us  severe ;  we 
discover  that  his  father  knows  it  to  be  his  second  offence.  The 
physical  basis  of  this  bit  of  information  must  lie  hidden  from  us  ; 
but  when  we  have  recognized  the  bit  of  information  as  present  in 
the  father's  mind,  we  regard  the  augmentation  of  the  punishment 
as  explained.  A  fact  which  seemed  to  stand  alone  has  been  classed 
with  other  facts,  and  it  no  longer  strikes  us  as  surprising. 

It  may  be  admitted  that,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge, 
it  would  be  absurd  to  sweep  away  all  such  bridges ;  and  it  may  be 
insisted,  nevertheless,  that  if  human  bodies  came  to  be  far  more 


448  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

perfectly  known  than  they  are,  it  would  be  possible  to  describe 
and  explain  all  the  actions  of  which  they  are  capable,  without 
once  referring  to  human  minds.  To  those  who  speak  thus  we 
must  concede  the  fact  that  it  would  undoubtedly  be  possible  to 
give  to  every  one  of  them  a  mechanical  explanation. 

But,  as  I  have  pointed  out  in  an  earlier  chapter,1  to  do  no 
more  than  this  is  to  ignore  so  much  of  our  world,  that  it  may 
almost  be  regarded  as  the  annihilation  of  our  world.  The  material 
world  is,  to  be  sure,  the  very  rock  upon  which  the  orderly  system 
of  experience  rests.  If  it  be  ignored,  we  have  a  chaos,  not  a  cos- 
mos ;  and  in  the  general  ruin  I  cannot  even  save  my  mind,  for,  as 
my  mind,  it  disappears  with  the  rest.  This  has  been  made  suffi- 
ciently evident  in  chapters  preceding.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that 
the  material  world  is  not  the  whole  of  experience.  Its  importance, 
as  that  which  orders  experience  as  a  whole,  cannot  be  overrated ; 
but  to  drop  quietly  out  of  sight  all  that  it  serves  to  order  is  surely 
absurd.  As  well  might  some  enthusiast  insist  that  we  should  fix 
our  attention  exclusively  upon  our  system  of  weights  and  meas- 
ures, and  should  make  no  mention  of  those  things  that  men  are 
interested  in  weighing  and  measuring. 

The  world  in  which  all  men  are  interested  is  a  world  of  minds 
related  to  each  other  through  bodies,  and  it  seems  inconceivable 
that  any  extension  of  our  knowledge  should  destroy  this  interest 
and  turn  us  into  mere  mechanisms.  The  changes  which  take  place 
in  our  brains  are,  in  themselves  considered,  no  more  interesting  or 
important  than  the  changes  which  take  place  in  so  many  rotting 
apples.  It  is  as  indicative  of  the  presence  of  minds  that  they 
acquire  their  unique  significance.  It  is  not  sensible  to  suppose 
that  as  I  grow  wiser  I  shall  lose  an  interest  in  all  save  molecular 
changes,  and  shall  outgrow  the  habit  of  thinking  of  myself  and  of 
other  men  as  loving  and  hating,  enjoying  and  suffering,  feeling  and 
knowing.  Our  world  will  always  remain  a  world  of  minds,  and 
a  martyr  will  continue  to  be  to  us  something  more  than  roast 
meat. 

Doubtless  it  will  here  be  objected  that,  admitting  all  this,  the 
real  existence  of  other  minds  remains  unproven.  Granted  that  I 
can  make  a  distinction  between  my  mind  and  an  external  world  ; 
granted  that  I  can  connect  my  mind  with  a  particular  body  in  the 
external  world;  granted  that  I  am  irresistibly  impelled  to  interpret 

1  See  Chapter  XVI. 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  449 

the  actions  of  other  bodies  after  the  analogy  of  my  own,  and  to 
assume  minds  related  to  these  bodies  as  my  mind  is  related  to  my 
body ;  does  it  not  remain  true,  nevertheless,  that  verification  of 
such  an  inference  is  out  of  the  question,  and  that  it  is  always  possi- 
ble to  maintain  that  I  may  be  deceived  in  making  it  ?  How  shall 
the  inference  be  justified  ? 

The  question  is  as  to  the  "  real  existence  "  of  other  minds  : 
that  I  think  they  exist  I  cannot  doubt ;  but  do  they  really  exist  ? 
Can  I  prove  it  ?  And  what  can  it  mean  to  prove  it  ?  Let  us 
begin  our  investigation  with  the  proof  of  the  real  existence  of  some 
material  thing. 

Here  is  the  desk  before  me  ;  does  it  really  exist  ?  Undoubtedly. 
I  maintain  that  no  proof  of  its  real  existence  is  necessary,  for  the 
desk  is  known  immediately.  But  am  I  certain  that  it  is  a  real 
desk,  and  that  I  am  not  laboring  under  an  hallucination  ?  It 
becomes  evident  that  in  calling  the  thing  a  real  desk  I  am  placing 
it  in  a  certain  order  of  experiences,  and  if  its  real  existence  as  a 
material  thing  is  called  in  question,  I  must  satisfy  myself  that  it 
does  belong  in  that  order.  Still,  I  am  in  the  habit  of  claiming  that 
I  know  the  desk  immediately,  for  no  other  proof  than  this  is  de- 
manded of  its  real  existence,  and  it  is  at  least  as  immediately  known 
as  any  other  thing.  But  it  is  not  so  with  my  neighbor's  desk.  I 
have  never  been  in  his  house.  He  says  that  he  sits  at  his  desk  for 
several  hours  daily,  and  in  my  mind's  eye  I  picture  him  as  seated 
before  such  a  bit  of  furniture.  Shall  I  believe  that  he  really  has  a 
desk  and  really  sits  at  it  ? 

He  says  so,  and  I  am  inclined  to  accept  his  statement  as  justifi- 
cation of  my  belief  in  the  fact.  I  have  often  noticed  that  when  he 
and  other  men  have  declared  things  unperceived  by  me  to  exist,  I 
have  later  been  able  to  verify  their  statements.  For  a  knowledge 
at  second  hand,  I  have  been  able  to  substitute  a  knowledge  at  first 
hand.  If  what  the  man  says  is  true,  it  is  possible  for  me  to  prove  it 
true  ;  and  if  I  can  think  of  any  reason  why  he  might  be  inclined  to 
deceive  me,  I  suspend  judgment  until  verification  becomes  possible. 
If  his  desk  really  exists,  it  is  a  part  of  a  system  of  things  every 
part  of  which  can  (theoretically)  be  as  directly  revealed  to  me  as  is 
this  desk  before  me.  To  assign  to  it  real  existence  is  to  allow  it  a 
place  in  this  system,  and  it  is  always  possible  to  verify  its  existence, 
to  justify  my  belief  in  its  existence,  by  a  direct  or  indirect  appeal 
to  such  an  experience  as  I  have  when  I  sit  opposite  my  own  desk. 
2e 


450  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

Every  really  existent  material  thing  can  have  its  existence  verified 
after  this  fashion. 

Absolute  proof  of  the  existence  of  such  a  thing  as  a  desk  seems, 
then,  to  mean  nothing  else  than  as  direct  a  knowledge  of  it  as  it  is 
conceivable  that  I  should  have.  Now  it  does  not  require  extraor- 
dinary perspicacity  to  see  that,  when  Clifford  maintains  that  the 
assumption  of  the  existence  of  other  minds  cannot  be  justified,  and 
when  Huxley  declares  that  their  existence  cannot  be  absolutely 
proved,  they  have  in  mind  a  justification  and  a  proof  of  precisely 
this  description.  When  we  recognize  this  to  be  the  case,  we  must 
unhesitatingly  agree  with  their  statements.  It  is  absolutely  impos- 
sible that  another  mind  should  be  revealed  to  me  as  this  desk  is. 
Gould  it  be  so  revealed,  it  would  not  be  another  mind.  It  would  be 
a  material  thing.  To  ask  for  proof  of  the  existence  of  another 
mind,  in  this  sense  of  the  word  "  proof,"  is  mere  nonsense  ;  it  amounts 
to  asking  that  another  mind  be  shown  to  be,  not  another  mind,  but 
a  material  thing.  For  a  material  thing  really  to  exist,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  it  should  have  its  place  in  the  orderly  system  that  we  call 
the  external  world ;  it  is  inconceivable  that,  if  other  minds  exist, 
they  should  exist  after  this  fashion,  and  be  proved  to  exist  as  such 
things  are  proved  to  exist. 

It  is  equally  inconceivable  that  they  should  be  proved  not  to 
exist  as  material  things  are  proved  not  to  exist.  I  may  take 
advantage  of  the  absence  of  my  neighbor,  and  inspect  his  rooms. 
The  desk  is  not  there.  But  how  shall  I  take  advantage  of  him 
and  prove  by  direct  inspection  the  non-existence  of  the  "  eject "  which 
I  call  his  mind?  The  fact  is,  that  the  words  "proof"  and  "dis- 
proof," in  the  sense  under  discussion,  have  no  meaning  as  applied 
to  the  existence  of  other  minds.  If,  then,  we  say  that  the  exist- 
ence of  another  mind  cannot  absolutely  be  proved,  and  hold  as  our 
standard  of  proof  the  one  set  forth  above,  we  are  stating  no  truth 
that  is  worth  putting  into  words.  Of  course  it  cannot  be  proved. 
It  is  trivial  to  insist  that  "ejects"  are  not  to  be  confounded  with 
"  objects,"  and  then  to  announce  the  discovery  that  "  ejects  "  can- 
not be  shown  to  be  "objects." 

In  so  far  as  Huxley  and  Clifford  say  no  more  than  this,  we 
may  agree  with  them,  and  yet  feel  that  we  have  made  no  step  in 
advance.  But  in  so  far  as  they  may  mean  to  imply  by  their 
words,  that  the  existence  of  other  minds  cannot  be  proved  in  any 
sense  of  the  word,  and  is,  hence,  a  legitimate  subject  of  doubt, 
we  have  a  right  to  enter  an  objection. 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  451 

We  may  point  out  that  each  of  them  admits,  explicitly  or 
implicitly,  that  he  is  justified  in  assuming  that  other  minds  exist. 
Huxley  denies  an  absolute  proof,  but  thinks  we  are  justified  "  by 
analogy  "  in  connecting  consciousness  with  other  men's  brains. 
Can  this  mean  that  the  existence  of  another  man's  mind  is  some- 
what uncertainly  proved  in  the  same  way  that  the  existence  of  a 
planet,  as  yet  perceived  by  no  one,  is  uncertainly  proved  from  the 
aberrations  of  other  heavenly  bodies  by  a  man  who  is  not  quite 
certain  of  his  data?  Not  at  all.  Uncertain  proofs  of  this  kind  are 
not  to  be  distinguished  in  kind  from  absolute  proofs.  Verification 
is  always  theoretically  possible,  and  may  come  at  any  time.  The 
analogy  to  which  Huxley  appeals  does  not  stand  in  the  same 
class.  It  is  impossible  that  we  should  substitute  for  it  the  abso- 
lute proof  which  he  distinguishes  from  it,  whatever  the  extension 
of  our  knowledge. 

And  although  Clifford  denies  that  our  inference  as  to  the 
existence  of  other  minds  is  justified,  he  admits  that  the  world 
has  discovered  a  proof  of  its  own  which  makes  it  unnecessary  for 
him  to  furnish  one.  He  does  not  disapprove  of  its  having  cut  the 
knot.  He  accepts  its  conclusions,  and  makes  of  them  a  decidedly 
dogmatic  use. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  in  neither  case  is  the  assumption  of 
the  existence  of  other  minds  frankly  admitted  to  be  a  purely  arbi- 
trary and  unreasonable  assumption  —  one  made  for  no  reason  at  all, 
save  that  the  writer  chose  to  make  it.  Were  it  really  as  unreason- 
able as  this,  no  one  would  take  it  seriously.  The  mere  fact  that 
it  is  made  by  a  man  of  science  in  a  work  intended  to  be  read  by 
sane  persons  of  mature  mind,  and  that  it  is  in  such  a  work  made 
the  basis  of  a  general  scheme  of  things,  is  enough  to  prove  that 
the  writer  felt  himself  justified,  in  some  proper  sense  of  the  word, 
in  making  it. 

That  the  assumption  can  be  justified,  and  the  existence  of 
other  minds  proved  with  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  certainty  is 
certainly  the  common  opinion  of  mankind.  That  their  existence 
cannot  be  proved  in  the  sense  in  which  the  existence  of  a  planet 
can  be  proved  seems  perfectly  evident.  In  what  sense  of  the 
word,  then,  can  it  be  proved? 

To  answer  this  question  one  has  only  to  turn  to  an  examination 
of  the  sort  of  evidence  which  is  always  adduced  for  the  existence 
of  other  minds.  This  evidence  I  have  presented  and  discussed  at 


452  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

length  in  this  chapter.  Where  it  is  lacking,  we  assert  that  we 
have  no  reason  to  infer  the  existence  of  another  mind;  where 
it  is  ambiguous,  we  admit  that  we  are  making  an  uncertain  infer- 
ence; where  it  is  unmistakable,  we  affirm  with  confidence  that 
another  mind  exists.  The  existence  of  another  mind  would  be 
absolutely  proved,  in  the  only  sense  of  the  word  in  which  it  means 
anything  at  all  to  prove  absolutely  the  existence  of  another  mind,1 
if  the  evidence  in  question  were  ideally  perfect.  The  possibility, 
the  probability,  the  certainty  of  the  existence  of  another  mind,  are 
words  which  have  no  meaning  except  what  they  gain  from  a  refer- 
ence to  the  evidence  under  discussion ;  and  a  doubt  as  to  the  pos- 
sibility, the  probability,  or  the  certainty  of  the  existence  of  another 
mind  can  only  be  justified  by  a  reference  to  the  same  evidence. 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  clear  that  it  is  a  grave  inconsistency 
for  a  man  to  refuse  to  recognize  this  evidence  as  furnishing  a 
proof  of  existence,  and  to  maintain  that,  although  other  minds 
may  exist,  we  can  never  know  it  with  certainty.  What  can  it 
mean  for  him  to  say  that  other  minds  may  exist  ?  Can  it  mean 
that  they  may,  conceivably,  be  directly  perceived,  as  material 
things  may  be,  but  that  it  is  uncertain  that  the  evidence  in  hand 
justifies  us  in  assuming  that  they  really  are  to  be  put  in  this  class  ? 
We  have  seen  that  this  is  absurd.  We  say  that  some  material 
things  do  exist,  and  we  say  that  some  may  exist.  When  we  make 
the  latter  statement  we  mean  that  the  sort  of  evidence  which 
establishes  the  existence  of  material  things  is  present  in  scant 
measure.  But  when  we  say  that  other  minds  may  exist,  we  cannot 
refer  to  the  insufficiency  of  evidence  of  this  sort,  for  no  possible 
degree  of  evidence  of  this  sort  can  have  any  bearing  upon  the 
question.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  when  a  man  says  that  other 
minds  may  exist,  he  falls  back  for  the  significance  of  his  statement 
upon  the  evidence  which  he  discredits.  If  he  absolutely  repudi- 
ates this  evidence,  his  words  mean  nothing  at  all.  And  if  he  gives 
it  sufficient  recognition  to  be  able  to  use  a  may,  there  is  no  reason 
at  all  why  he  should  not  go  further  and  say  that  other  minds  do 
exist. 

1  I  assume  here  and  elsewhere  in  this  chapter  that  consciousnesses  must 
always  remain  "  ejective  "  to  each  other.  It  is  the  commonly  accepted  position. 
I  maintain  that  even  on  this  basis  we  are  justified  in  maintaining  that  the  existence 
of  other  minds  can  be  proved.  In  the  next  chapter,  however,  the  reader  will  find 
some  reflections  which  seem  to  have  a  good  deal  of  significance  for  the  doctrine  of 
ejects. 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  453 

To  deny  that  such  evidence  may  be  called  proof,  is  to  limit  the 
meaning  of  the  word  "  proof "  in  an  arbitrary  way,  and  one  not 
justified  by  common  usage.  The  world  of  the  plain  man  is  a 
world  of  bodies  and  minds ;  he  thinks  that  he  has  abundant  proof 
of  the  existence  of  these  minds,  and  even  proof  that  their  contents 
differ  in  certain  rather  definite  ways.  A  science  has  been  built  up 
which  endeavors  to  give  him  an  accurate  account  of  the  minds  in 
which  he  believes.  Shall  we  tell  him  that  he  has  really  no  proof 
of  their  existence,  and  that  the  whole  thing  may  be  a  mistake? 
What  sort  of  a  mistake  is  a  mistake  that  can  never  by  any  possi- 
bility, under  any  conceivable  circumstances,  be  shown  to  be  one? 
As  well  speak  of  an  error  that  it  is  even  theoretically  impossible 
ever  to  distinguish  from  a  truth. 

But  there  are  persons  who  are  quite  willing  to  admit  the  exist- 
ence of  other  minds,  who  are,  nevertheless,  impelled  by  the  fact 
that  minds  cannot  directly  inspect  one  another  to  conclude  that 
we  can  never  be  sure  "how  things  look  to  other  people."  I  speak 
of  the  color  red ;  something  is  called  up  by  the  word  to  my  neigh- 
bor's mind.  Suppose  that  he  has  always  had  the  sensation  of  gray 
color  when  he  has  looked  at  an  object  which  has  given  me  the 
sensation  of  red  color.  When  I  speak  of  red  color  will  he  not 
think  of  gray,  and  must  it  not  remain  concealed  from  me  that  our 
experiences  differ  ? 

I  answer :  if  the  inference  which  results  in  the  assumption  of 
other  minds  is  good  for  anything,  it  is  good  for  a  great  deal.  We 
do  not  merely  assume  that  other  minds  exist.  We  find  ourselves 
able  to  say  a  good  deal  about  them.  No  man  attributes  to  a  horse 
the  mind  of  a  human  being ;  and  if  it  is  possible  to  go  as  far  as 
this  without  error,  it  is  theoretically  possible  to  travel  to  the  end 
of  the  road. 

That  men  may  differ  in  their  perceptions  of  color  has  already 
been  discovered,  and  much  has  been  written  touching  the  phenom- 
ena of  color-blindness.  It  is  quite  true  that  our  knowledge  of 
other  minds  is  as  yet  highly  incomplete.  It  is  also  true  that  in 
attempting  to  describe  them  we  may  fall  into  error.  But  if  we 
declare  such  error  to  be  beyond  the  possibility  of  correction,  we 
lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  the  whole  argument  for  other  minds. 
Onr  ignorance  of  the  contents  of  other  minds  must  not  vaguely  be 
attributed  to  the  fact  that  they  are  other  minds.  It  can  be  ac- 
counted for  in  detail.  It  has  its  foundation  in  our  ignorance  of 


454  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

our  own  minds  and  bodies.  Were  my  knowledge  of  my  own  mind 
and  body  ideally  complete,  were  the  point-for-point  correspondence 
between  mind  and  brain  fully  made  out  in  a  single  instance,  there 
could  be  no  possible  doubt  as  to  the  precise  contents  of  the  mind 
revealed  by  another  brain.  But  I  cannot  attain  to  such  a  knowl- 
edge of  other  minds  unless  I  know  a  vast  deal  about  my  own  mind, 
my  own  brain,  and  the  brain  of  the  man  in  whose  mind  I  am  inter- 
ested. To  claim  that  we  actually  enjoy  such  a  knowledge  at  pres- 
ent would  be  to  betray  either  an  unpardonable  ignorance  of  the 
facts  or  a  boundless  conceit. 

Our  inferences  as  to  the  contents  of  other  minds  must,  hence, 
be  somewhat  vague  and  loose.  We  must  admit  that  a  man  may 
look  sad  and  yet  not  feel  sad,  may  suffer  and  yet  not  show  it. 
But  we  may  admit  this  frankly,  and  yet  maintain  that  it  is  absurd 
to  say  that  another  man  may  be  suffering,  and  while  he  is  suffer- 
ing there  may  be  no  trace  of  his  feelings  in  any  part  of  his  body. 
The  droop  at  the  corners  of  a  mouth  may  be  all  that  we  have  to  go 
upon,  the  sole  outward  and  visible  sign  within  our  field  of  view. 
If  we  have  no  more,  we  speak  with  hesitation,  for  facial  expression 
is  somewhat  remotely  connected  with  mental  phenomena,  and  ex- 
perience has  taught  us  that  this  sign  may  be  contradicted  by  others. 
It  is  always  problematic  whether  the  widow's  veil  does  or  does  not 
cover  a  broken  heart.  But  to  assume  that  the  particular  cerebral 
disturbance  which  is  the  concomitant  of  a  pain  in  the  one  instance 
may  really  be  the  concomitant  of  a  pleasure  in  another  is  to  deny 
altogether  the  argument  from  analogy  which  leads  us  to  infer  the 
existence  of  other  minds.  If  the  voice  can  be  the  voice  of  Jacob, 
while  the  hands  are  in  this  fashion  the  hands  of  Esau,  why  not 
assume  these  unperceived  hands  to  be  something  quite  other  than 
hands,  or,  perhaps,  to  be  nothing  at  all? 

It  appears,  thus,  that  the  plain  man  and  the  psychologist  are 
justified  in  accepting  the  scheme  of  things  which  seems  to  be 
revealed  to  them  —  an  external  world  and  a  realm  of  minds  which 
are  related  to  each  other  through  bodies  which  form  a  part  of  the 
external  world.  What  is  meant  by  the  external  world,  what  is 
implied  by  the  words  "  my  mind,"  how  we  are  to  conceive  of  minds 
as  related  to  bodies,  what  we  mean  by  "another  mind,"  and  how 
we  come  to  assume  that  other  minds  exist  —  all  this  I  have  tried 
to  make  plain  in  this  and  in  the  preceding  chapters.  To  the  plain 
man  it  is  not  particularly  plain ;  and  the  psychologist,  whatever 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  455 

else  he  may  do,  usually  gives  us  little  assistance  in  the  analysis  of 
those  conceptions  with  which  the  metaphysician  must  occupy  him- 
self. But  I  am  inclined  to  maintain  that  in  what  I  have  said  I 
have  not  wandered  far  from  what  really  is  implicit  in  common 
thought.  In  analyzing,  I  have  not  denied  the  justice  of  the  dis- 
tinctions which  men  have  drawn  ;  the  results  are  the  less  startling, 
and,  I  believe,  the  more  worthy  of  confidence. 

There  is  one  more  matter  upon  which  I  should  touch  before 
bringing  this  chapter  to  an  end.  It  is  generally  believed  that  we 
all  gaze  upon  the  same  external  world.  Each  man  possesses  his 
own  mental  life  as  no  one  else  possesses  it,  but  the  external  world 
is  a  common  possession.  This  was  inconsistently  recognized  by 
Mill  when  he  said :  "  the  Possibilities  of  Sensation  which  are  called 
outward  objects,  are  possibilities  of  it  to  other  beings  as  well  as  to 
me."  But  what  can  it  mean  to  speak  of  the  external  world  as  a 
common  possession?  Can  it  mean  that  something  in  one  conscious- 
ness is  identical  with  something  in  another? 

Another  man  and  I  are  at  the  same  time  looking  at  a  tree.  He 
is  near  the  tree,  and  I  am  far  from  it.  He  is  conscious  of  the  tree 
as  large  and  green ;  I  am  conscious  of  it  as  small  and  blue.  Is 
anything  more  of  the  tree  actually  "  given  "  to  him  than  is  given 
in  the  expanse  of  green  ?  and  is  anything  more  actually  "  given  " 
to  me  than  this  speck  of  blue  color  ?  The  percept  is,  to  be  sure, 
always  more  than  what  is  given  in  the  sense ;  and  to  identify  the 
thing  as  a  tree,  both  he  and  I  must  supplement  what  is  given 
in  the  sense  by  materials  drawn  from  the  storehouse  of  memory 
and  imagination.  I  cannot,  however,  draw  upon  his  stores,  nor 
can  he  upon  mine.  His  sensations  are  his  sensations,  and  they 
appear  to  differ  in  important  particulars  from  those  of  which  I  am 
conscious.  His  percept  as  a  whole  —  and  is  this  not  the  only  tree 
within  his  reach?  —  must  be  declared  a  distinct  thing  from  my 
percept.  What,  then,  have  we  in  common?  Not  the  sensation, 
for  his  sensations  and  mine  may  be  very  different;  not  the  repre- 
sentative elements  in  the  percept,  for  what  exists  in  his  imagination 
cannot  be  identical  with  what  exists  in  mine.  And  nothing 
appears  to  be  "  present "  to  either  of  us,  that  does  not  fall  under 
the  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  heads.  How,  then,  can  we  both 
perceive  the  same  tree? 

The  fallacy  which  lurks  in  such  reasonings  as  these  ought  not 
to  be  difficult  of  detection  to  those  who  have  read  with  compre- 


450  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

hension  what  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  pages.  It  consists  in 
basing  the  statement  of  a  problem  upon  the  recognition  of  certain 
distinctions,  and  then,  by  the  obliteration  of  these  same  distinc- 
tions, rendering  the  solution  of  the  problem  impossible.  If  I 
begin  by  saying  that  another  man  and  I  are  at  the  same  time  look- 
ing at  a  tree,  I  have  no  right  to  deny  the  distinctions  that  make 
this  statement  a  significant  one.  Either  one  has  a  right  to  make 
it,  or  one  has  not.  If  one  has  not,  there  is  no  problem.  If  one 
has,  one  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  one  mind  has  been 
distinguished  from  another,  and  both  minds  from  an  external  world. 
Such  being  the  case,  it  is  manifestly  inconsistent  to  put  the  exter- 
nal world  into  either  mind,  and  it  is  a  palpable  absurdity  to  put 
the  same  external  world  into  both.  If  the  two  minds  are  really 
two,  —  are  mutually  exclusive,  —  what  is  a  part  of  one  cannot  be 
identical  with  what  is  a  part  of  the  other.  To  say  that  it  is  in 
some  sense  the  same,  although  in  two  minds,  is  to  take  refuge  in  an 
ambiguous  word,  and  to  rest  content  with  that. 

We  have  seen  that  reflective  thought  recognizes  the  justice  of 
distinguishing  between  the  mind  and  the  world,  and  between  one 
mind  and  another.  My  mind  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
external  world.  No  one  of  my  percepts  is  to  be  confounded  with 
any  object  in  the  external  world.  As  my  percept  it  has  its  place 
in  the  subjective  order,  not  in  the  objective.  To  symbolize  this,  I 
grant  my  body  a  "  halo,"  after  the  fashion  of  the  parallelist,  and  I 
call  this  my  consciousness.  I  must  never  forget  that  my  conscious- 
ness, as  my  consciousness,  simply  disappears,  if  the  objective  order 
be  wholly  abstracted  from. 

Following  the  golden  rule,  I  treat  my  neighbor  to  a  halo,  i.e.  I 
treat  him  as  I  treat  myself.  But  to  what  is  the  halo  affixed?  to  a 
body  in  the  objective  order;  in  the  same  objective  order  which 
contains  my  body.  No  one  of  my  neighbor's  percepts  is  to  be 
identified  with  any  one  of  my  percepts.  Such  an  identification 
means  an  obliteration  of  the  whole  construction ;  my  neighbor's 
percept  would  not  be  his  percept,  my  percept  would  not  be  my 
percept,  the  external  object  would  not  be  the  external  object. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  it  is  not  one  and  the  same  thing 
to  say  "  the  external  world,"  and  to  say  "  the  external  world  as  re- 
vealed to  me."  The  words  to  me  indicate  clearly  that,  in  making 
use  of  the  latter  expression,  one  is  referring  a  given  experience  to 
the  subjective  order,  not  to  the  objective.  It  is  easy  to  forget  this, 


The  Existence  of  Other  Minds  457 

to  say,  all  I  can  know  of  the  world  is  the  world  as  it  is  revealed  in 
my  consciousness  —  and  having  said  this,  to  conclude  that  the 
world  can  only  be  known  as  percept.  The  error  has,  as  I  have 
pointed  out,  a  relative  justification  in  the  fact  that  an  experience 
that  can  take  its  place  in  the  objective  order  can  also,  under  ap- 
propriate circumstances,  be  relegated  to  the  subjective  order, 
though  not,  of  course,  without  losing  its  character  as  objective. 
But  when  it  is  clearly  seen  that,  if  no  world  can  be  known  as  not- 
percept,  no  world  can  be  known  as  percept,  the  pitfall  should  be 
avoided. 

But  the  world  that  is  known  as  not-percept  is  neither  my  world, 
nor  the  world  of  my  neighbor.  It  cannot  be  put  into  my  halo  ;  the 
halos  are  many,  it  is  one.  It  is  not  the  world  as  it  exists  in  my 
consciousness,  nor  is  it  the  world  as  it  exists  in  the  consciousness 
of  any  one  else.  But  how,  then,  can  we  even  speak  of  it?  Can  a 
man  talk  about  a  world  which  is  not  the  world  revealed  to  him, 
the  world  in  his  consciousness  ? 

He  who  raises  this  question  has  taken  the  parallelistic  figure 
too  literally.  I  have  pointed  out  in  the  chapter  on  "The  Dis- 
tinction between  the  Mind  and  the  World  "  that  an  objective  order 
is  revealed  as  well  as  a  subjective.  By  the  words  "  my  conscious- 
ness "  I  sum  up  the  phenomena  of  the  subjective  order.  But  it  is 
absurd  to  allow  the  use  of  this  name  to  mislead  me  into  ignoring 
the  objective  order. 

Am  I,  then,  to  say:  I  can  be  conscious  of  what  is  not  in  my  con- 
sciousness? The  expression  is  undoubtedly  an  unhappy  one.  Per- 
haps I  can  best  answer  the  question  by  saying :  If,  by  the  expression 
"  my  consciousness  "  I  mean  no  more  than  my  halo,  and  if  for  me  to  be 
conscious  of  this  and  that  means  no  more  than  to  have  this  and  that 
in  my  halo,  then  I  can  certainly  never  be  conscious  of  anything  that 
is  not  in  my  consciousness.  But  if  I  thus  limit  the  meaning  of  the 
verb  "to  be  conscious,"  what  word  shall  I  employ  to  indicate  the 
recognition  of  the  external  world,  of  the  objective  order?  It  has 
quite  as  good  a  right  to  recognition  as  the  subjective,  and  recognize 
it  I  must,  if  I  will  retain  possession  even  of  the  subjective.  Is  it 
not  better  to  recognize  that  the  word  "  consciousness  "  may  be  used 
in  a  broader  and  in  a  narrower  sense  ?  May  I  not  say  that,  in  one 
sense,  I  am  conscious  of  nothing  that  is  not  a  part  of  my  conscious- 
ness, but  that,  in  another,  I  am  conscious  of  external  things  as  well, 
and,  indeed,  as  immediately  ? 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE   DISTRIBUTION   OF    MINDS 

IN  many  instances  it  seems  so  natural  to  assume  the  existence 
of  other  minds,  and  the  general  nature  of  such  minds  seems  so 
clearly  indicated,  that  reflection  makes  no  pause  to  consider  the 
process  of  inference,  and  no  doubts  or  questionings  are  brought  to 
the  birth.  Between  my  neighbor's  body  and  my  own,  and  between 
his  actions  and  my  own,  there  is  a  close  analogy.  As  I  converse 
with  him  the  thoughts  in  his  mind  rise  up  before  me  through  no 
conscious  effort  of  my  own.  I  am  filled  with  admiration  of  his 
eloquence,  impressed  with  the  lucidity  and  systematic  arrange- 
ment of  his  ideas,  inspired  by  the  loftiness  of  his  sentiments. 
That  he  has  a  mind,  and  that  it  is  a  mind  of  a  high  order,  it  does 
not  occur  to  me  to  doubt. 

But  when  I  am  led  by  the  psychologist  to  reflect  upon  the 
subject  of  minds  and  their  contents,  and  upon  the  difficulties 
which  attend  the  determination  of  the  exact  contents  of  minds, 
I  am  brought  to  admit  that  some  questions  may  reasonably  be 
asked  even  in  such  a  case.  May  I  assume  from  the  warmth  of 
my  neighbor's  expressions  that  he  is  really  conscious  of  such 
a  suffusion  of  feeling  as  I  would  be  conscious  of  were  I  speaking 
thus  ?  Do  his  words  always  mean  to  him  just  what  they  mean  to 
me?  I  must  know  my  neighbor  rather  intimately  before  I  can 
be  even  moderately  sure  that  I  am  not  assuming  in  him  a  likeness 
to  myself  that  is  not  justified  by  fact.  That,  in  general,  men 
may  mean  one  thing  and  be  understood  to  mean  another,  no  man 
can  deny  —  least  of  all  the  student  of  philosophy  who  has  watched 
the  sympathetic  commentator  inflating  his  chosen  author  with  a 
wind  of  doctrine  not  his  own.  If  my  neighbor  and  I  are  closely 
alike,  and  if  I  know  my  neighbor  intimately,  it  seems  easy  for  me 
to  understand  him.  But  no  two  men  are  exactly  alike,  and  there 
is  always  room  for  some  misconception. 

And  the  greater  the  difference,  the  greater  the  danger  of  mis- 

458 


The  Distribution  of  Minds  459 

conception.  It  is  rather  difficult  for  a  man  to  comprehend  the 
workings  of  the  mind  of  a  woman  ;  it  is  not  easy  for  an  adult  to 
realize  how  bare  of  content  may  be  the  mind  of  a  child ;  try  as  he 
will,  the  finished  product  of  an  elaborate  civilization  must  enter 
very  imperfectly  into  the  pains  and  pleasures,  the  interests  and 
ideals,  the  hopes  and  fears,  of  the  Australian  savage.  He  who 
would  distribute  "  halos "  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men 
should  often,  in  justice  to  himself,  stand  prepared  to  discard  the 
uncompromising  and  clearly  outlined  gold  plate  of  a  Fra  Angelico, 
arid  content  himself  with  the  modest  and  faintly  indicated  touches 
of  light  that  adorn  the  canvases  of  a  Titian. 

If  there  is  this  uncertainty  in  the  inference  to  other  minds, 
when  we  are  dealing  with  our  fellows,  what  are  we  to  expect 
when  we  come  to  give  an  account  of  minds  of  a  lower  order  ?  No 
one  doubts  that  there  are  such  minds.  The  philosophic  theory 
that  darkened  the  eyes  of  the  Cartesian,  leading  him  to  deny  the 
existence  of  consciousness  in  any  creature  below  man,  no  longer 
obscures  for  us  the  significance  of  an  analogy  too  striking  to 
escape  the  notice  of  any  man  not  under  the  influence  of  strong 
prepossession.  A  creaking  door  and  a  yelping  dog  are  evidently 
not  to  be  brought  under  the  same  category.  Some  sort  of  a  mind 
we  must  allow  the  dog,  but  what  sort?  The  animal  psychology 
at  present  growing  up  occupies  a  legitimate  field  of  human  inquiry, 
but  those  most  familiar  with  its  results  are  more  conscious  than 
other  men  of  the  pitfalls  which  cover  the  ground,  and  are  much 
more  distrustful  of  the  anecdotes  illustrative  of  the  intelligence  of 
the  brute  creation  which  pass  current  among  the  unscientific. 

Yet,  although  we  are  upon  uncertain  ground  when  we  attempt 
to  describe  the  psychic  life  of  such  animals  as  the  ape,  the  dog, 
the  cat,  or  the  horse,  it  does  not  seem  absurd  for  us  to  try,  at 
least,  to  give  some  indication  of  its  nature.  These  creatures  do 
not  resemble  man  closely,  but  they  do  resemble  him  unmistakably 
in  some  particulars.  With  each  remove,  however,  our  difficulties 
thicken.  The  horrified  tourist  who  wanders  into  a  Cuban  market 
and  sees  a  businesslike  Chinaman  unpack  a  row  of  live  turtles  as 
though  they  were  so  many  valises,  and  poke  about  among  their 
entrails  to  exhibit  the  fat  there  embedded,  cannot  help  asking 
himself  whether  the  turtles  object  seriously  to  martyrdom.  To 
all  outward  appearance,  they  are  less  discomposed  than  the  on- 
looker. It  is  a  brave  man  who  will  undertake  to  paint  the 


460  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

emotions  of  such  a  being,  or  to  tell  us  what  the  world  means 
to  an  ant,  a  fly,  a  cuttlefish,  or  an  earthworm.  Yet,  that  all  these 
enjoy  a  psychic  life  of  some  sort,  we  feel  impelled  to  admit.  We 
grant  them  minds  by  the  same  analogy,  although  in  a  weakened 
form,  by  which  we  grant  minds  to  other  men.  And  if  we  may 
grant  minds  to  these,  can  we  deny  something  of  the  kind  to  the 
amoeba,  that  little  jellylike  speck  which  stands,  it  is  true,  very 
far  removed  from  the  brutes  with  which  we  began  our  descent, 
and  yet  is  to  be  found  in  the  same  series  with  them  ? 

Nor  is  it  by  any  means  self-evident  that  we  may  not  go  farther 
than  this.  The  analogy  between  plant  life  and  animal  life  has  so 
impressed  many  thoughtful  men  that  they  have  felt  impelled  to 
conclude  that  the  distribution  of  minds  or  of  something  like  minds 
cannot  be  limited  to  the  animal  kingdom.  The  poetic  fancy  of  a 
Fechner l  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  a  sober  guide  to  truth ;  but 
the  analogies  which  impressed  Fechner  have  given  rise  to  ques- 
tionings in  minds  much  less  impressionable.  Who  can  draw  a 
definite  line  through  nature,  and  say,  on  the  one  side  of  this  we 
have  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  revelation  of  minds,  and  on 
the  other  such  evidence  is  wholly  absent?  Shall  we  draw  the  line 
below  the  plant?  There  is  the  crystal,  which  inhabits  a  debatable 
land,  as  it  were,  between  the  living  and  the  dead.  And  who  can 
prove  a  total  absence  of  consciousness  even  in  the  realm  of 
amorphous  matter? 

It  will  be  observed  that,  when  we  begin  with  man  and  descend 
gradually  along  the  scale  of  beings,  we  seem,  in  the  upper  part  of 
the  series,  to  be  in  doubt,  not  whether  or  not  there  are  minds,  but 
rather  what  sort  of  minds  are  revealed.  Toward  the  bottom  of 
the  series  we  ask  ourselves  in  much  perplexity  whether  anything 
like  mind  is  revealed  at  all. 

It  is  natural  that  this  should  be  so.  There  is  but  one  argu- 
ment for  other  minds,  and  that  is  the  argument  from  analogy  dis- 
cussed in  the  preceding  chapter.  Where  the  analogy  is  a  close 
one,  our  conclusion  is  unhesitating  ;  as  it  grows  more  remote, 
we  waver,  and  dwell  in  uncertainty.  As  we  have  seen,  even  in 
the  case  of  man  our  knowledge  of  the  relation  of  mind  and  body 
is  far  from  satisfactory,  and  yet  this  knowledge  is  to  serve  as  a 
basis  for  all  our  inferences. 

It  is  said  that  drowning  men  will  clutch  at  straws,  and  it  is 
1  "Nanna,  oder  iiber  das  Seelenleben  der  Pfiaim-n." 


The  Distribution  of  Minds  461 

certainly  true  that  men  who  feel  their  ignorance  to  be  galling  will 
fill  the  gaps  in  their  knowledge  with  the  most  unsubstantial  of 
speculative  fabrics.  Upon  the  ambiguous  adage  that  nature  makes 
no  leap  is  built  the  fanciful  doctrine  that  every  material  atom  is 
accompanied  by  an  atom  of  mind-stuff,  and  thus  it  is  proved  that 
every  part  of  nature  is  animated.  I  shall  have  occasion  to  dis- 
cuss this  doctrine  later,  and  need  not  dwell  upon  it  here.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  it  is  one  of  those  short  cuts  to  knowledge  that 
should  be  plainly  marked  with  the  sign  —  Danger  !  We  have  no 
whit  of  evidence  to  prove  that  there  is  any  such  concomitance  of 
mental  phenomena  and  material  phenomena  as  is  here  postulated. 
For  all  we  know  to  the  contrary,  the  simplest  manifestation  of 
mind  may  demand  as  its  concomitant  a  highly  complex  material 
fact,  and  such  complex  material  facts  may  not  be  found  so  very 
widely  distributed  in  the  realm  of  nature.1  Pleasing  as  may  be 
such  bold  speculations  as  the  one  referred  to,  there  is  one  thing 
that  ought  to  be  even  more  pleasing  to  the  serious  mind,  and  that 
is  sober  truth.  Here  the  sober  truth  is,  that  within  a  limited 
sphere  we  have  rather  definite  and  reasonably  assured  knowledge  ; 
beyond  that  sphere  our  knowledge  grows  gradually  more  uncer- 
tain and  more  indefinite,  until  it  fades  out  into  complete  ignorance. 
We  may,  if  we  choose,  hazard  a  guess  at  what  lies  in  the  darkness 
about  us,  but  it  is  not  wise  to  assume  that  our  guesses  are  some- 
thing more  than  they  really  are. 

But  to  return  to  man.  We  have,  in  previous  chapters,  referred 
his  mind  to  his  brain,  and  not  to  his  body  as  a  whole.  The  brain 
of  man  is,  however,  enormously  complex,  and  is  almost  unexplored 
territory.  It  is  quite  possible  that  a  relatively  small  part  of  it  is 
to  be  made  concomitant  with  his  "  halo  "  —  with  the  consciousness 
to  which  we  commonly  refer  when  we  speak  of  the  mind  of  this 
man  or  of  that.  Are  we  to  deny  halos  to  all  other  parts  ?  Are 
we  to  assume  that  there  is  no  consciousness  at  all  connected 
with  the  functioning  of  such  parts  ?  Are  we  to  overlook  the 
lower  nervous  centres  in  man,  and  to  grant  the  whole  man  but 
the  one  halo  ?  This  could  easily  be  done  by  a  Cartesian.  To 
him,  between  the  soul,  the  full-fledged  responsible  soul  seated  in 
the  pineal  gland,  and  bare  mechanism  without  any  consciousness 
whatever  there  is  no  halfway  house.  Either  a  creature  has 

1 1  shall  ask  the  reader,  in  judging  this  statement,  to  take  into  consideration 
what  is  said  in  Chapters  XXXII  to  XXXV. 


462  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

a  soul,  a  thinking,  feeling,  willing  soul,  the  traditional  soul  with 
all  its  traditional  properties,  or  it  has  nothing ;  if  it  is  not  as  good 
as  human,  it  is  a  creaking  door,  a  beaten  drum,  a  responsive  mech- 
anism that  has  no  "  inside  "  to  which  we  need  pay  attention. 

There  is  no  danger  at  the  present  day  of  our  denying  to  the 
lower  animals  minds  of  some  sort.  A  frog  acts  as  if  it  had  intel- 
ligence, and  we  ascribe  to  it  intelligence.  There  are,  however, 
persons  to  whom  the  problem  seems  to  take  on  a  new  aspect  when 
it  is  a  question,  not  of  a  whole  animal,  but  of  a  part  of  such.  A 
frog  is  a  creature  that  may  be  decapitated  without  ceasing  to  live, 
and  a  decapitated  frog  furnishes  the  physiologist  and  the  psychol- 
ogist with  much  food  for  reflection. 

The  physiologist  cuts  off  a  frog's  cerebral  hemispheres  by  a 
section  between  them  and  the  optic  thalami,  and  at  first  sight  the 
animal  appears  to  be  in  a  state  but  little  different  from  that  in 
which  he  was  before.  He  can  breathe,  swallow,  crawl,  jump, 
swim,  and  guide  himself  by  the  sense  of  sight  in  avoiding  obsta- 
cles placed  between  him  and  the  light.  More  careful  observation 
shows  that  he  has  lost  some  of  his  spontaneity  ;  he  seems  to  be  a 
simpler  and  a  more  calculable  thing  than  he  was.  He  does  not 
show  fear,  and  he  is  not  stimulated  by  hunger  to  feed  himself. 
Nevertheless,  it  would  not  occur  to  any  one  not  prepossessed  in 
favor  of  some  theory  touching  mind  and  brain,  to  deny  him  a 
mind  of  some  sort.  His  intellectual  horizon  seems  to  be  limited  ; 
remote  considerations  of  all  sorts  are  beyond  him  ;  but  he  acts  as 
though  he  had  purposes  and  adapted  his  movements  to  the  attain- 
ment of,  at  least,  immediate  ends. 

If  the  cut  be  between  the  thalami  and  the  optic  lobes,  the 
activities  of  the  animal  are  further  restricted,  but  such  activities 
as  jumping  and  swimming  appear  to  be  quite  normal,  and  the 
creature  croaks  regularly  when  pinched  in  certain  ways.  If  the 
cut  be  made  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  only  the  cerebellum  and 
the  medulla  oblongata  attached  to  the  spinal  cord,  locomotion  by 
land  and  by  water  becomes  somewhat  imperfect,  but  the  frog  still 
appears  to  prefer  having  his  body  in  one  position  to  having  it  in 
another,  and  turns  over  when  placed  upon  his  back. 

Now,  if  we  go  one  step  farther,  and  rid  a  frog  of  his  whole 
brain,  including  the  medulla,  we  have  left  on  our  hands  a  very 
poor  sort  of  a  frog  indeed.  The  creature  is  not  dead,  but  he  does 
not  breathe,  swallow,  or  sit  erect.  If  placed  on  his  back,  he  stays 


The  Distribution  of  Minds  463 

there.  He  cannot  jump  or  swim  or  croak.  Can  we  still  say  that 
he  has  preferences  ?  Shall  we  attribute  to  this  remnant  of  a  frog 
anything  of  the  nature  of  mind  ?  Let  us  try  the  classical  experi- 
ment of  hanging  him  up  by  the  nose  and  laying  a  bit  of  paper 
wet  with  acid  upon  his  skin.  He  makes  what  seem  to  be  pur- 
posive efforts  to  reach  the  spot  irritated,  and  to  wipe  away  the 
irritant.  Failing  to  do  it  with  one  foot,  he  may  try  to  do  it  with 
another,  thus  apparently  recognizing  the  inadequacy  of  one 
method  of  dealing  with  this  situation  and  abandoning  it  for  a  new 
method.  Are  we  to  deny  that  there  is  any  analogy  between  the 
actions  of  such  a  frog  and  the  actions  of  a  normal  frog  or  those  of 
a  man  ?  The  mutilated  frog  certainly  acts  as  though  he  meant  to 
do  something.  A  disinterested  spectator  not  prepossessed  in 
favor  of  some  theory  as  to  the  soul's  seat  naturally  concludes  that 
he  does  mean  to  do  something. 

To  be  sure,  the  less  of  a  nervous  system  we  leave  a  frog,  the 
less  do  we  recognize  in  its  actions  what  we  are  accustomed  to  call 
spontaneity,  and  the  more  are  we  struck  by  their  regularity  and 
precision.  We  feel  inclined  to  compare  them  with  the  function- 
ing of  the  mechanisms  constructed  by  man.  One  may  even 
elevate  this  difference  to  the  rank  of  an  absolute  difference  of 
kind,  and  maintain  that  the  mutilated  frog  is  a  machine  merely, 
and  is,  hence,  unconscious  ;  while  the  normal  frog  is  not  a  pure 
machine  at  all,  but  is  a  machine  ruled  by  a  consciousness. 

But  if  the  reasonings  contained  in  a  previous  chapter 1  have 
any  weight,  there  is  no  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  most 
active  and  spontaneous  of  frogs  is  to  be  regarded  as  other  than  a 
mechanism,  nor  are  we  justified  in  assuming  that  the  recognition 
of  this  creature  or  that  as  a  mechanism  is  any  reason  for  believing 
that  the  creature  in  question  has  not  a  mind.  Moreover,  one 
must  remember  that  the  normal  frog  and  the  frog  with  but  a 
spinal  cord  are  not  separated  by  an  unfilled  interval.  We  may 
descend  along  our  series  of  sections  somewhat  as  we  descend 
along  the  animal  scale  from  higher  to  lower.  We  find  less  and 
less  evidence  of  intelligence,  less  spontaneity  and  variety  of  action, 
less  extended  a  horizon.  But  our  differences  seem  to  be  through- 
out differences  in  degree  rather  than  in  kind. 

It  does  not,  then,  appear  to  be  absurd  to  speak  of  the  con- 
sciousness connected  with  this  or  that  lower  nervous  centre  in  the 

1  Chapter  XV. 


464  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

frog.  The  possible  number  of  such  consciousnesses,  the  question 
whether  they  may  exist  simultaneously,  and  other  matters  of  the 
sort,  are  legitimate  subjects  for  investigation.  It  can  readily  be 
seen  that  a  new  complication  has  entered  into  the  question  of  the 
distribution  of  halos.  One  feels  strongly  inclined  to  envy  the 
Cartesian  the  simplicity  of  his  solution. 

Now,  a  man  may  not  be  treated  like  a  frog.  If  we  decapitate 
him,  he  will  die,  and  all  evidence  of  mind  will  disappear.  Never- 
theless, the  inadequacy  of  the  Cartesian  psychology  has  been  made 
apparent  even  in  the  case  of  human  beings.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  enter  at  length  into  a  description  of  phenomena  the  details  of 
which  concern  rather  the  physiologist  and  the  psychologist  than 
the  metaphysician,  but  it  is  plain  that  the  metaphysician  has  no 
right  to  discuss  the  distribution  of  minds  without  taking  into 
consideration  the  conclusions  at  which  the  physiologist  and  the 
psychologist  seem  forced  to  arrive. 

The  physiologist  sometimes  speaks  of  a  rudimentary  conscious- 
ness connected  with  various  lower  centres  in  man  —  with  the 
spinal  cord,  or  with  the  medulla,  or  with  the  basal  ganglia  in  the 
brain.  The  facts  which  he  can  marshal  are  not  so  abundant  or 
so  unambiguous  as  those  which  he  finds  at  hand  when  he  is  ex- 
perimenting upon  the  frog,  and  in  the  assumption  of  the  existence 
of  such  rudimentary  consciousnesses  we  may  or  may  not  feel 
willing  to  follow  him.  But  even  if  we  refuse  to  follow  him  in 
this,  we  are  not  on  that  account  justified  in  concluding  that,  under 
all  circumstances,  but  one  consciousness  may  be  granted  to  one 
man. 

The  cortex  of  the  brain,  to  which  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge  we  seem  justified  in  referring  the  consciousness  of  a 
man,  —  the  consciousness  which  we  habitually  regard  as  the  mind 
of  the  man,  and  of  which  we  are  thinking  when  we  describe  his 
character,  —  may,  as  we  have  abundant  evidence  to  prove,  be  the 
seat  of  other  consciousnesses  as  well.  Volumes  have  been  written 
upon  the  phenomena  of  dual  or  even  multiplex  consciousness, 
;mcl  the  facts  are  too  numerous  and  too  well  established  to  be  met 
by  a  general  scepticism.  Of  the  truth  of  some  of  them,  at  least, 
any  one  may  convince  himself  by  a  few  experiments  upon  a  good 
hypnotic  subject.  It  may  be  experimentally  demonstrated  that 
a  consciousness  may  be  divided,  and  that  its  parts  may  become 
foreign  to  each  other,  as  the  normal  consciousness  of  one  person 


The  Distribution  of  Minds  465 

is  foreign  to  that  of  another  person.  Says  Professor  James,  after 
an  excellent  summary  of  such  facts  :  "  It  must  be  admitted,  there- 
fore, that,  in  certain  persons,  at  least,  the  total  possible  consciousness 
may  be  split  into  parts  which  coexist  but  mutually  ignore  each  other, 
and  share  the  objects  of  knowledge  between  them."1  Which 
means  that  there  may  be  two  consciousnesses  connected  with  one 
brain. 

It  appears,  then,  that  we  cannot  feel  that  we  have  done  justice 
to  the  subject  when  we  have  diagrammatically  represented  to 
ourselves  one  halo  as  related  to  one  organism.  Sometimes  we  have 
palpable  evidence  of  the  existence  of  more  than  one  halo  at  the  one 
time ;  sometimes  there  seems  to  be  an  alternation  of  halos ;  some- 
times two  halos  appear  to  join  and  form  but  one.  The  old  Carte- 
sian notion  of  the  mind  and  its  relation  to  the  body  will  no  longer 
serve.  "  The  absolute  unity  of  the  ego,"  writes  Janet,  "  is  a 
metaphysical  conclusion,  which  is  true,  perhaps,  but  which  ought 
to  be  arrived  at  as  an  inference  from  the  facts,  and  ought  not  to 
impose  itself  upon  the  facts.  There  is  no  proof  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  animal  save  the  intelligent  adaptation  of  its  movements. 
We  must  discover  whether  this  intelligent  adaptation  reveals  to 
us  in  the  animal  one  or  two  or  three  consciousnesses,  and  only 
then  must  we  draw  our  conclusion  as  to  the  unity  or  the  division 
of  the  ego."2  These  words  Professor  Janet  has  written  out  of  a 
very  full  knowledge  at  first  hand  of  the  class  of  facts  upon  which 
I  have  commented  above.  Certainly  no  one  unacquainted  with 
these  facts  is  in  a  position  to  give  an  intelligent  opinion  upon  the 
subject  of  consciousness  and  its  unity. 

Here  the  question  naturally  arises  :  Does  all  this  mean  that 
we  are  to  repudiate  the  sort  of  reasoning  that  led  Descartes  to 
refer  the  mind  to  the  brain,  and  thus  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
the  science  of  cerebral  psychology  ?  I  answer  :  Not  at  all.  It 
means  simply  that  reasonings  of  much  the  same  sort  are  to  be 
carried  out  more  carefully,  that  facts  to  which  scant  justice  was 
done  before  are  to  be  brought  into  more  careful  consideration, 
that  metaphysical  hypotheses  inherited  from  the  past  are  to  be 
prevented  from  having  an  undue  influence  upon  our  conclusions. 
If  we  are  led  by  certain  phenomena  which  present  themselves  to 
infer  that  two  consciousnesses  are  to  be  referred  to  one  brain,  we 

1  "Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  206. 

2  "  L'Automatisme  Fsychologique,"  Paris,  1889,  p.  26. 
2  n 


466  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

are  following  much  the  same  chain  of  argument  as  when  we  infer 
that  one  consciousness  is  to  be  referred  to  one  brain.  In  each 
case  we  know,  at  least  vaguely,  what  we  mean  by  a  conscious- 
ness, and  the  problem  of  localization  is  the  same  problem  in  every 
case. 

It  should  be  remarked  that  the  fact  that  more  than  one  con- 
sciousness, or  perhaps  I  should  say  here  more  than  one  personality, 
may  under  some  circumstances  be  revealed  by  one  organism,  is 
not  a  discovery  of  modern  science.  From  the  earliest  times  it 
had  been  recognized  with  superstitious  awe  that  the  normal  per- 
sonality of  a  man  may  be  dethroned,  and  its  place  usurped  by 
another.  The  Pythia  was  not  supposed  to  speak  of  her  own 
motion  and  to  utter  her  own  thoughts.  The  phenomena  inter- 
preted as  indicating  demoniac  possession  had  frozen  the  blood  of 
many  generations  of  men  and  had  given  rise  to  cruel  exorcisms. 
The  Protean  forms  of  the  trance  state,  loss  of  memory  due  to 
disease,  —  in  short,  many  things  that  are  to  the  modern  psycholo- 
gist of  the  highest  significance,  —  were  generally  recognized  long 
before  modern  psychology  had  its  birth.1  It  is  impossible  to 
suppose  that  Descartes  had  not  within  his  reach  sufficient  mate- 
rial to  give  him  good  cause  to  modify  his  psychological  doctrine, 
had  he  been  capable  of  seeing  the  significance  of  the  material. 
But  the  time  was  not  ripe  for  a  complete  recasting  of  old  concep- 
tions, and  the  meaning  of  the  facts  was  not  grasped. 

The  possibility  of  a  coalescence  of  the  consciousnesses  referred 
to  one  brain  suggests  a  further  possibility  which  many  will  con- 
template as  startling.  "  When  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that  you 
are  conscious,"  says  Clifford,  "  and  that  there  are  objects  in  your 
consciousness  similar  to  those  in  mine,  I  am  not  inferring  any 
actual  or  possible  feelings  of  my  own,  but  your  feelings,  which 
are  not,  and  cannot  by  any  possibility  become,  objects  in  my 
consciousness."  Upon  this  passage  Professor  Pearson  comments 
as  follows  :  — 

"  To  this  it  may  be  replied,  that,  were  our  physiological  knowl- 
edge and  surgical  manipulation  sufficiently  complete,  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  it  would  be  possible  for  me  to  be  conscious  of  your 

1  See  Spinoza's  reflections  upon  a  case  of  loss  of  memory.  He  refuses  to  regard 
the  subject  as  the  same  man  after  his  misfortune.  The  discussion  is  of  especial 
interest  as  coming  from  the  pen  of  one  who  so  early  saw  the  inadequacy  of  the  Car- 
tesian doctrine.  —  "Ethics,"  iv,  39,  scholium. 


The  Distribution  of  Minds  467 

feelings,  to  recognize  your  consciousness  as  a  direct  sense-impres- 
sion ;  let  us  say,  for  example,  by  connecting  the  cortex  of  your 
brain  with  that  of  mine  through  a  suitable  commissure  of  nerve- 
substance.  The  possibility  of  this  physical  verification  of  other- 
consciousness  does  not  seem  more  remote  than  that  of  a  journey 
to  a  fixed  star.  .  .  .  Clifford  has  given  the  name  eject  to  exist- 
ences which,  like  other-consciousness,  are  only  inferred,  and  the 
name  is  a  convenient  one.  At  the  same  time  it  seems  to  me 
doubtful  whether  the  distinction  between  object  (what  might  pos- 
sibly come  to  my  consciousness  as  a  direct  sense-impression)  and 
.eject  is  so  marked  as  he  would  have  us  to  believe.  The  compli- 
cated physical  motions  of  another  person's  brain,  it  is  admitted, 
might  possibly  be  objective  realities  to  me  ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  might  not  the  hypothetical  brain  commissure  render  me 
just  as  certain  of  the  workings  of  another  person's  consciousness 
as  I  am  of  my  own  ?  "  T 

It  must  be  admitted  that  this  question  is  at  present  one  of 
theoretic  interest  only,  for  we  have  as  yet  no  single  fact  to 
indicate  that  twro  brains  may  be  made  such  a  physiological  unit 
as  to  become  the  seat  of  a  single  consciousness.  Nevertheless, 
the  fact  that  a  consciousness  "  may  be  split  into  parts  which 
coexist,  but  mutually  ignore  each  other,"  and  the  further  fact  that 
these  parts  may  reunite  to  form  one  consciousness,  makes  the  above 
suggestion  one  that  we  cannot  dismiss  as  absurd.  In  making  it, 
Professor  Pearson  does  not  appear  to  have  had  in  mind  the 
phenomenon  above  alluded  to  as  furnishing  its  plausibility  to 
the  speculation.  He  refers  only  to  the  disputed  phenomena  of 
"  thought-transference,"  which,  even  if  we  accept  them  as 
genuine,  are  susceptible  of  more  than  one  interpretation.  But 
well-attested  facts  with  a  significance  less  dubious  do  exist,  and 
it  is  worth  our  while  to  pause  for  reflection  upon  them. 

I  must  recognize  the  fact  that  my  consciousness  is  both  extensive 
and  protcnsive.  I  am  conscious  of  an  indefinite  number  of  mental 
phenomena  simultaneously.  It  would  scarcely  seem  worth  while 
to  insist  upon  what  appears  so  self-evident,  were  it  not  that  the 
fact  has  been  denied  by  psychologists  of  standing.  The  doctrine 
that  the  total  consciousness  of  any  moment  is  an  unanalyzable 
unit,  without  parts  or  constitutive  elements,  is,  however,  so 
repugnant  to  our  actual  experience,  so  incompatible  with  the 
1  "  The  Grammar  of  Science,"  2d  edition,  London,  1900,  pp.  49-50. 


468  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

possibility  of  psychological  analysis  of  any  sort,  and  so  evidently 
a  misconception  arising  from  a  prepossession  in  favor  of  a  certain 
metaphysical  theory  of  the  unity  of  the  ego,  that  it  may  be  set 
aside  without  entering  into  a  prolonged  discussion.  If  I  confine 
myself  to  the  data  furnished  by  one  sense,  and  pay  attention  only 
to  what  seems  presented  when  I  fix  my  eyes  upon  this  desk 
littered  with  papers,  I  cannot  believe  that  what  is  in  consciousness 
even  at  the  moment  is  an  absolute  and  undistinguishable  unit.  My 
consciousness  is,  thus,  complex,  and  possesses  a  varied  simultaneous 
content ;  this  I  may  call  its  extensive  aspect. 

Again.  In  an  earlier  chapter  I  have  argued  that  what  is  given 
in  consciousness  intuitively  must  be  allowed  some  duration,  if  the 
symbolic  representation  of  periods  of  time  is  to  be  truly  symbolic, 
i.e.  if  the  symbols  by  means  of  which  we  represent  to  ourselves 
extended  periods  of  time  are  to  have  a  true  significance.1  But 
when  I  speak  of  my  consciousness  as  protensive,  I  do  not  mean  to 
allow  it  a  duration  limited  to  the  span  intuitively  given  in  con- 
sciousness. The  consciousness  which  I  recognize  as  my  own,  and 
the  consciousness  which  I  attribute  to  this  man  or  that,  I  conceive 
to  extend  over  a  series  of  years,  and  to  include  an  indefinite 
number  of  successive  states,  no  one  of  which  is  to  be  confounded 
with  another.  This  is  entirely  in  accordance  with  common  usage, 
which  regards  the  mind  of  a  man  as  something  which  is  revealed 
by  his  body  as  long  as  the  body  lasts  ;  or,  in  any  case,  as  long  as 
it  is  not  smothered  in  its  tenement  by  the  slow  paralysis  of  age  or 
driven  from  it  by  the  onslaughts  of  disease.  By  the  mind  of  a 
man  no  one  means  a  mere  pulse  of  experience,  and  it  does  not 
occur  to  us  to  attribute  to  man  a  succession  of  minds  which  are 
born  and  die  as  the  shadow  moves  upon  the  dial.  Whatever  we 
may  mean  by  the  unity  of  consciousness,  we  recognize  it  as 
embracing  a  series  of  successive  states,  as  well  as  a  more  or  less 
complex  group  of  coexistent  elements.  Consciousness  may  be 
protensive  as  well  as  extensive. 

Now,  it  will  be  generally  admitted  that  I  am  immediately  con- 
scious of  the  sensations  which  present  themselves  to  me  at  the 
present  moment.  It  will  also  be  admitted  that  I  am  immediately 
conscious  of  various  representative  elements  as  representative  ele- 
ments. It  may  be  maintained,  however,  that  I  can  be  conscious  of 
these  latter  immediately  only  because  they  have  a  present  exist- 

1  See  Chapter  XIII. 


The  Distribution  of  Minds  469 

ence,  and  that  I  cannot  be  immediately  conscious  of  mental  expe- 
riences which  I  had  ten  years  ago,  or  even  ten  minutes  ago. 
Are  not  these  gone,  never  to  return  ?  Can  one  experience  a 
non-existent  experience  ?  How,  then,  can  past  experiences  be 
said  to  belong  to  consciousness  ?  How  can  they  form  a  part  of 
the  one  whole  with  experiences  which  now  exist  ? 

In  answer  to  this  I  will  say  that  it  is  aside  from  our  purpose 
just  here  to  enter  into  an  exhaustive  examination  of  the  meaning 
of  the  phrase  "immediate  knowledge."  I  have  no  desire  to 
obliterate  any  distinctions  which  may  be  of  use  to  the  psycholo- 
gist, or,  for  other  purposes,  to  the  metaphysician  ;  but  we  are 
concerned  with  the  distinction  of  object  and  eject,  and  it  appears 
sufficient  to  remark  that  my  mental  experiences  of  ten  years  ago, 
which  I  recall  in  an  act  of  memory,  are  not  related  to  any  sensa- 
tions which  I  may  be  experiencing  at  the  present  moment  in  a 
way  at  all  analogous  to  that  in  which  another  man's  experiences 
are  related  to  mine.  My  own  past  forms  one  whole  with  my 
present,  at  least  in  a  sense  in  which  another  man's  past  does  not. 
I  do  not  infer  that  I  experienced  such  and  such  sensations  ;  I 
remember  it.  My  past  is  presented  to  me  as  immediately  as  it  is 
possible  for  a  past  to  be  presented.  That  another  man  has  had  a 
given  experience  at  a  given  time  I  cannot  know  in  this  way,  but 
I  must  discover  the  fact  as  result  of  an  argument  of  the  sort  to 
which  we  always  have  recourse  when  \ve  concern  ourselves  with 
the  contents  of  other  minds.  This  has  been  recognized  by  those 
who  have  dwelt  upon  the  distinction  between  object  and  eject. 
Clifford,  for  example,  classes  as  objects  for  me,  not  merely  the 
feelings  which  go  to  make  up  my  consciousness  of  the  moment,  but 
also  all  past  and  all  future  feelings  which  belong  to  the  one  series 
in  the  sense  upon  which  I  have  dwelt  above,  and  he  contrasts  this 
series  as  a  whole  with  those  other  series  which  he  recognizes  as 
other  minds. 

The  whole  series  of  phenomena  thus  recognized  as  objective, 
as  known,  not  by  inference,  but  directly,  I  refer  to  my  body  in 
the  way  indicated  in  Chapters  XXIII  and  XXIV,  and  I  diagram- 
matically  represent  them  as  the  one  "  halo."  It  is  important  to 
realize  that  this  means  and  must  mean  that  I  know  these  phe- 
nomena, not  merely  objectively,  but  also  in  another  way.  I  know 
them  in  their  relation  to  an  external  world  ;  I  know  their  physical 
signs.  It  may  be  said,  thus,  that,  for  the  phenomena  of  my  own 


470  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

mind,  I  have  both  objective  and  ejective  evidence.  Did  I  not 
have  such  evidence,  were  I  not  conscious  of  my  own  mental 
experiences,  so  to  speak,  from  both  sides,  the  argument  for  other 
minds  would  utterly  lapse.  I  should  have  no  ground  whatever 
upon  which  to  take  my  stand  while  drawing  my  inference. 
Yesterday  I  suffered  from  the  toothache.  I  can  remember  it 
directly.  I  can  also  remember  my  bodily  reaction,  my  complaints 
and  wry  faces,  the  advice  of  solicitous  friends,  my  visit  to  the 
dentist.  These  last  constitute  what  I  may  call  my  toothache  as 
grasped  "from  the  physical  side."  They  are  ejective  evidence  of 
its  existence.  For  the  consciousness  of  another  man  I  have  no 
other  evidence  than  this  ;  I  perceive  physical  signs,  and  I  infer 
the  existence  of  psychic  phenomena. 

And  if  any  part  of  the  consciousness  that  I  call  mine  has  be- 
come detached  from  the  rest,  it  is  for  the  time  being  in  the  same 
case  —  my  evidence  for  its  existence  is  purely  ejective.  I  take  up 
a  paper  which  I  wrote  many  years  since,  and  I  follow  with  curi- 
osity the  course  of  what  was  once  my  thought.  It  may  be  that  I 
have  forgotten  ever  having  written  the  paper,  and  have  so  com- 
pletely forgotten  the  train  of  thought  indicated  in  it  that  even  a 
perusal  fails  to  awaken  my  dormant  memories.  In  such  a  case  it 
is  clear  that  I  have  but  one  sort  of  evidence  to  prove  that  the 
thoughts  in  question  really  existed  at  the  time  indicated  —  the 
sort  of  evidence  that  persuades  me  to  believe  that  other  men  are 
conscious  or  have  been  conscious.  Much  that  we  have  thought 
and  felt  during  the  first  years  of  our  lives  can  be  known  to  us 
only  on  such  evidence.  The  tale  told  by  the  nurse  or  by  the 
mother  is  accepted,  though  it  awakens  no  memory.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  tale  that  is  heard  may  after  a  time  drag  back  to  life 
memories  which  seemed  hopelessly  lost.  The  man  who  has  quite 
forgotten  his  heedless  promise  may,  as  a  result  of  pondering  upon 
the  matter,  come  to  remember  what  he  has  forgotten.  That  is 
to  say,  objective  evidence  may  appear  and  corroborate  evidence 
merely  ejective.  What  was  cut  off  from  a  consciousness  may 
come  to  be  joined  to  it  again. 

Now,  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  making  a  separate  halo  of 
every  bit  of  consciousness  which  we  have  lost.  In  other  words, 
we  do  not  think  of  it  as  being  a  different  mind,  or  even  anything 
like  a  different  mind.  It  seems  clear,  however,  that  if  we  fail  to 
see  here  a  significant  analogy,  it  is  because  we  have  not  sufficiently 


The  Distribution  of  Minds  471 

reflected.  But  even  the  unreflective  must  be  impressed  by  the 
more  striking  phenomena  which  may  be  produced  experimentally 
in  hypnotic  subjects,  or  which  present  themselves  spontaneously, 
to  the  consternation  of  the  family  and  friends  of  the  unhappy 
victims  of  certain  nervous  diseases.  A  consciousness  may  be 
divided  in  time  in  such  a  way  that  whole  sections  of  a  life  may  be 
cut  off  and  become  purely  ejective  to  the  rest ;  a  consciousness 
may  also  be  divided  in  such  a  way  that  we  are  bound  to  refer  to 
the  one  organism  coexistent  personalities,  each  of  which  is  ejective 
to  the  other.  The  division  may  be,  so  to  speak,  either  transverse 
or  longitudinal.  And  we  may  have  indubitable  evidence  of  the 
subsequent  coalescence  of  these  separate  consciousnesses  to  form 
one  mind  again. 

I  have  said  above  that  we  have  no  single  fact  to  prove  that  two 
different  brains  may  become  such  a  functional  unit  that  the  minds 
referred  to  them  may  coalesce  to  form  a  single  consciousness.  The 
question  has  but  a  speculative  interest.  Nevertheless,  the  fact 
remains  that  what  was  purely  ejective  to  a  given  consciousness 
may,  under  certain  conditions,  become  objectively  known,  may 
become  a  part  of  it  ;  and  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge 
(or  of  our  ignorance)  we  should  admit  that  it  does  not  seem 
absurd  to  speak  of  the  theoretic  possibility  of  the  coalescence  of 
the  consciousnesses  of  two  different  men. 

Our  consciousness  consists  of  a  very  large  number  of  successive 
states,  and  its  content  at  any  moment  is  highly  complex.  It  is. 
the  mark  of  this  great  collection  of  psychic  elements  that  each 
part  of  it  is  known  both  objectively  and  ejectively  ;  that  is,  that 
it  is  known  directly,  and  known  in  relation  to  its  physical  signs. 
How  extended  may  be  the  consciousness  known  in  this  twofold 
way  it  is  impossible  to  determine  a  priori,  and  it  is  equally  impos- 
sible to  say  to  how  large  a  portion  of  the  physical  world  such  a 
consciousness  ma}7  be  related  as  we  relate  mind  and  brain.  The 
question  is  simply  a  question  of  fact. 

As  things  stand,  we  have  no  reason  to  relate  in  this  way  one 
consciousness  to  more  than  one  organism,  and  we  must  accept  the 
fact  that  the  innumerable  consciousnesses  which  we  believe  to  exist 
in  connection  with  the  bodies  of  other  men  and  of  the  brutes  are 
certified  to  us  only  on  ejective  evidence.  So  far  as  we  know,  we 
shall  never  attain  to  any  proof  of  their  existence  different  in  kind 
from  that  which  we  possess  now.  Yet  the  mere  fact  that,  even  in 


472  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

a  single  instance,  what  has  been  pure  eject  may  come  to  be  known 
also  as  object,  is  not  without  its  significance  for  the  whole  doctrine 
of  eject  and  object.  It  is  one  thing  to  say  :  we  have  only  ejec- 
tive  evidence  for  the  existence  of  other  men's  minds  ;  and  it  is 
another  thing  to  say  that  it  is  inconceivable  that  we  ever  should 
have  any  other  evidence  of  the  existence  of  what  we  now  call 
other  men's  minds.  We  seem  to  find  in  the  above  reflections  an 
added  reason  for  repudiating  the  statement  that  our  belief  in  the 
existence  of  other  men's  minds  cannot  be  theoretically  justified. 

Does  this  obliterate  the  distinction  between  object  and  eject  ? 
Not  in  the  least.  For  another  mind,  so  long  as  it  remains  another 
mind,  we  can  never  have  anything  but  ejective  evidence  —  there 
is  but  one  argument  for  other  minds.  Should  any  other  mind  or 
fragment  of  mind  become  one  with  ours,  we  should  know  it,  as  we 
now  know  our  own  mind,  in  a  twofold  way.  We  should  know 
it  directly,  and  not  merely  through  its  physical  signs. 

It  is  important  not  to  misunderstand  this  statement.  When  I 
maintain  that  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  we  may  come  to  know 
directly  what  is  now  to  us  another  mind,  and  is  known  only  as 
eject,  I  do  not  mean  that  the  mind  in  question  may  come  to  be 
perceived  as  an  atom  may,  perhaps,  come  to  be  perceived.  To  be 
perceived  thus  it  would  have  to  be  a  material  thing.  I  mean  to 
maintain  only  that  it  may  come  to  be  known  as  my  mind  is  now 
known,  that  it  may  form  one  consciousness  with  the  latter.  This 
explanation  is  not  wholly  unnecessary,  for  the  words  "  object " 
and  "  objective  "  may  easily  be  misleading.  In  saying  that  I  may 
conceivably  come  to  have  objective  knowledge  of  another  mind, 
or  rather,  of  what  was  another  mind,  I  can  only  mean  that  I  may 
come  to  know  the  phenomena  in  question  as  I  know  mental  expe- 
riences, once  forgotten  —  lost,  cut  off  from  my  consciousness  — 
but  which  have  been  restored  to  me.  Such  experiences  I  do  not 
perceive,  and  I  do  not  expect  to  perceive,  as  I  perceive  another 
man's  body.  If  I  choose  to  say  that  I  know  them  as  object,  I 
must  bear  in  mind  that  this  does  not  mean  that  I  know  them  as 
external  object.  Similarly,  any  mind  that  I  may  come  to  know 
directly  will  not  be  known  as  external  object.  Could  it  be  thus 
known,  it  would  not  be  mind.  When  contrasted  with  "  eject  " 
and  "  ejective/'  the  words  "  object  "  and  "  objective  "  are  given  a 
special  sense,  as  the  reader  has,  no  doubt,  remarked. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 
THE  UNITY  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

SUCH  reflections  as  are  contained  in  the  preceding  pages  give 
a  peculiar  insistence  to  the  question  :  What,  after  all,  do  we 
mean  by  one  consciousness  f  How  are  we  to  conceive  the  differ- 
ence between  two  consciousnesses,  "  sharing  the  objects  of  knowl- 
edge between  them,"  and  a  single  consciousness  ?  The  psychologist 
unhesitatingly  draws  the  distinction.  We  may  diagrammatically 
symbolize  the  difference  by  representing  it  as  the  difference 
between  two  halos  and  one.  But  what  is  it  that  leads  us  to  call 
a  certain  number  of  psychic  phenomena  a  consciousness,  and  to 
ascribe  to  them  a  certain  unity  ? 

Perhaps  the  best  way  for  me  to  approach  this  question  is  to 
show  how  the  problem  of  the  unity  of  consciousness  has  presented 
itself  to  an  acute  psychologist  whose  studies  have  forced  it  into  a 
position  of  peculiar  prominence.  After  a  careful  examination  of 
the  phenomena  of  catalepsy,  where  the  consciousness  of  the  indi- 
vidual appears  to  be  reduced  to  a  single  sensation  or  a  very 
limited  group  of  such  ;  of  the  phenomena  of  the  somnambulistic 
states,  with  which  we  are  all  familiar  as  illustrated  in  hypnotic 
subjects  ;  and  of  the  curious  curtailings  of  the  normal  conscious- 
ness in  certain  hysterical  patients,  who  may  lose  out  of  their  lives 
various  groups  of  sensations  or  the  memory  of  whole  weeks, 
months,  or  years,  —  M.  Janet,  whose  admirable  work  on  "Psycho- 
logical Automatism  "  I  have  cited  in  the  preceding  chapter,  feels 
impelled  to  conceive  of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  and  of 
their  unity  as  is  indicated  in  the  following  extract  :  — 

"  The  phenomenon  produced  in  our  consciousness  when  an 
impression  has  been  made  on  our  senses  and  which  is  betrayed  by 
the  phrases  :  '  I  see  a  light  ;  I  feel  a  prick,'  is  already  a  very 
complex  phenomenon.  It  is  not  constituted  by  the  mere  brute 
sensation  alone  ;  but  it  includes  in  addition  an  operation  of  active 
synthesis,  present  at  every  moment,  which  connects  this  sensation 

473 


474  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

with  the  group  of  images  and  of  anterior  judgments  which  con- 
stitute the  ego  or  the  personality.  The  apparently  simple  fact 
which  is  expressed  by  the  words  '  I  see  ;  I  hear,'  is,  even  if  we 
leave  out  of  account  the  ideas  of  externality,  distance,  and  locali- 
zation, already  a  complex  perception.  I  have  insisted  upon  this 
idea  before,  when  studying  automatic  acts  performed  in  the 
cataleptic  state.  I  there  adopted  the  opinion  of  Maine  de  Biran, 
who  distinguishes  in  the  human  mind  a  purely  affective  life  of 
mere  sensations,  phenomena  conscious  but  not  attributed  to  a 
personality,  and  a  perceptive  life  of  sensations  united,  systematized, 
and  attached  to  a  personality. 

"  We  may,  while  attaching  to  the  figure  only  a  purely  sym- 
bolic value,  represent  to  ourselves  our  conscious  perception  as  a 
double  process  ;  as  including  :  (1)  the  simultaneous  existence  of 
a  certain  number  of  conscious  sensations,  tactual  (T  T'  27"),  mus- 
cular (M  M7  M"~),  visual  (FF7  F"),  and  auditory  (A  A'  A"). 


These  sensations  exist  simultaneously  and  in  a  state  of  isolation 
from  each  other,  like  a  number  of  little  lights  which  might  be  lit 
in  all  the  corners  of  a  dark  hall.  These  primitive  conscious 
phenomena  may,  anterior  to  perception,  be  of  different  kinds  — 
sensations,  memories,  images,  —  and  may  have  different  sources. 
Some  may  come  from  an  actual  impression  made  upon  the 
senses  ;  others  may  be  introduced  by  the  automatic  play  of  asso- 
ciation in  the  wake  of  other  phenomena.  But,  not  to  complicate 
a  problem  already  too  complex,  let  us  consider  at  first  only  the 
simplest  case,  and  let  us  suppose  all  those  elementary  phenomena 
to  be  simple  sensations  produced  by  an  external  modification  of 
the  organs  of  sense. 

"  (2)  An  operation  of  active  and  actual   synthesis  by  which 
these  sensations  connect   themselves  with   one   another,    form   a 


The  Unity  of  Consciousness  475 

group,  fuse,  and  are  lost  in  a  unique  state,  to  which  a  principal 
sensation  gives  its  tone,  but  which  probably  does  not  wholly 
resemble  any  one  of  its  constituent  elements.  This  new  phenome- 
non is  the  perception  P.  Since  this  perception  comes  into  being 
at  every  instant,  as  a  consequence  of  each  new  group,  and  since  it 
contains  memories  as  well  as  sensations,  it  forms  the  idea  that  we 
have  of  our  personality,  and  after  that  it  can  be  said  that  some  one 
perceives  the  images  T  T'  T",  M  M'  M",  etc.  The  activity  that 
thus  synthetizes  at  every  moment  of  life  the  different  psychologi- 
cal phenomena,  and  that  forms  our  personal  perception,  must  not 
be  confounded  with  the  automatic  association  of  ideas.  The 
latter,  as  I  have  said  before,  is  not  an  actual  activity:  it  is  the 
result  of  a  former  activity  which  once  synthetized  certain  phe- 
nomena into  an  emotion  or  a  unique  perception,  and  which  has 
left  them  with  a  tendency  to  reproduce  themselves  in  the  same 
order.  The  perception  of  which  I  am  now  speaking  is  the  syn- 
thesis at  the  moment  of  its  formation,  at  the  moment  when  it 
unites  new  phenomena  into  a  unity  at  each  instant  new. 

".  .  .  In  a  theoretically  perfect  case,  which  probably  does  not 
exist,  all  the  sensations  comprised  in  the  first  operation,  T  T'  T" ', 
etc.,  would  be  united  in  the  perception  P,  and  the  man  would  be 
able  to  say  '  I  feel '  with  reference  to  all  the  phenomena  which 
take  place  in  him.  But  this  is  never  the  case,  and,  in  the  most 
perfectly  constituted  of  men,  there  must  be  a  mass  of  sensations 
produced  by  the  first  operation  which  escape  the  influence  of  the 
second.  I  do  not  mean  sensations  which  escape  the  voluntary 
attention  and  are  not  comprised  in  what  I  may  call  the  field  of 
clear  vision.  I  mean  sensations  which  are  absolutely  unattached 
to  the  personality  and  of  which  the  ego  does  not  recognize  that  it 
is  conscious,  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  not  contain  them. 
In  order  to  represent  this  to  ourselves,  let  us  suppose  that,  while 
the  first  operation  remains  the  same,  the  second  operation  is  modi- 
fied. The  power  of  synthesis  can  exercise  itself,  at  each  moment 
of  life,  on  only  a  certain  number  of  phenomena,  on  five,  for 
example,  and  not  on  twelve.  Thus  out  of  the  twelve  supposed 
sensations,  T  T'  T"  M  M1  M",  etc.,  the  ego  will  perceive  only 
the  five,  T  T'  M  V  A.  Touching  these  sensations  it  will  say, 
'I  have  felt  them  ;  I  have  been  conscious  of  them.'  But  if  we 
speak  to  it  of  the  other  phenomena,  of  T"  V  A',  etc.,  which, 
according  to  our  hypothesis,  have  also  been  conscious  sensations, 


476  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

it  will  answer  that  it  does  not  know  what  we  are  talking  about, 
and  that  it  has  known  nothing  of  all  that.  Now,  we  have  studied 
carefully  a  particular  condition  of  hysterical  subjects  and  of  those 


who  suffer  from  nervous  disease  in  general  which  I  have  called 
the  contraction  of  the  field  of  consciousness.  This  characteristic 
is  produced,  according  to  my  hypothesis,  by  this  feebleness  of 
psychic  synthesis  carried  further  than  we  usually  find  it  ;  a 
feebleness  which  prevents  them  from  uniting  into  a  single  per- 
sonal perception  a  great  number  of  the  sensory  phenomena  which 
really  exist  in  them."  * 

These  simple  sensory  phenomena  not  included  in  any  percep- 
tion, but  existing  each  for  itself,  M.  Janet  happily  describes  as 
"mental  dust."  Their  isolation  makes  them  play  a  very  insig- 
nificant role.  Each  of  them  carries  with  it  a  tendency  to  move- 
ment, but  this  is  neutralized  by  their  reciprocal  conflicts,  and 
especially  are  they  held  in  check  by  the  stronger  group  of  other 
sensations  synthetized  under  the  form  of  personal  perception.  At 
the  most,  they  are  able  to  produce  those  slight  tremors  in  the 
muscles,  those  convulsive  contractions  of  the  face,  those  twitch- 
ings  of  the  fingers,  which  give  a  peculiar  stamp  to  many  hysterical 
subjects.  But  if  a  certain  number  of  them  come  to  be  synthetized 
into  a  second  personal  perception  independent  of  the  former,  the 
case  becomes  very  different.  We  are  no  longer  shut  up  to  the  faint 
and  uncertain  indications  of  subconscious  (which  does  not  mean 
unconscious)  mind  to  which  reference  has  been  made  above.  We 
may  have  much  the  same  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  secondary 
personality  that  we  have  of  the  existence  of  the  normal  personality, 
and  we  may  freely  communicate  with  it.  The  two  personalities 
divide  between  them  the  sensory  phenomena,  which,  however,  they 
i  "  L'Automatisme  Psychologique,"  pp.  305-308. 


The  Unity  of  Consciousness  477 

may  not  exhaust.     We  can  picture  the  state  of  affairs  by  the  aid 
of  the  accompanying  diagram. 


T         T<        T"      M         M'       M"      V      ^  V        V" 

• 


While  M.  Janet's  subject,  Lucie,  is  conversing  in  a  normal 
way  with  another  person,  he  succeeds  in  entering  into  communi- 
cation with  her  secondary  personality,  and  carries  on  a  conversa- 
tion in  which  she  bears  her  part  in  writing.  The  writing  is 
"  automatic  "  ;  that  is  to  say,  what  is  taking  place  is  unknown  to 
the  normal  consciousness  of  Lucie.  The  conversation  is  as  fol- 
lows :  " Do  you  hear  me?  "  " No."  "  But  one  must  hear  in  order 
to  answer."  "  Yes,  of  course."  "  Then  how  do  you  do  it?  "  "I 
don't  know."  "But  there  must  be  some  one  who  hears  me." 
"Yes."  "Who  is  it?"  "Some  one  else  than  Lucie."  "Ah! 
another  person.  Do  you  want  me  to  give  her  a  name?"  "  No." 
"Yes,  it  will  be  more  convenient."  "Well,  then,  Adrienne." 
"Then,  Adrienne,  do  you  hear  me?"  "Yes."  Here  we  have, 
connected  with  the  one  organism,  the  two  selves,  P  and  P',  each 
indubitably  a  consciousness,  and  each  cut  off  from  the  other  as 
one  consciousness  is  always  cut  off  from  another.1 

I  have  given  M.  Janet's  doctrine  in  some  detail,  because  of  the 
admirable  clearness  of  his  exposition,  and  because,  in  his  hands,  it 
becomes  an  excellent  instrument  for  rendering  intelligible  a  multi- 
tude of  phenomena  to  which  the  traditional  psychology  does  scant 
justice.  Its  fundamental  thought  is  not  new,  as  M.  Janet  him- 
self points  out ;  and  the  reader  is  already  familiar  with  the  con- 
ception of  psychic  elements  knit  into  unity  by  a  synthetic  activity. 

I  am  not  here  concerned  to  defend  M.  Janet  at  all  points.    For 

example,  the  quantity  of  "  mental  dust "  we  may  in  a  given  case 

assume  to  exist  is  a  question  the  psychologist  must  determine  by 

the  usual  method  of  the  interpretation  of  the  physical  signs  of 

1  "  L'Automatisme  Psycliologique,"  pp.  314  ff. 


478  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

mind.  He  is,  of  course,  in  danger  of  falling  into  error.  But 
making  allowance  for  all  this,  there  remain  certain  facts  which 
appear  to  be  unshakable.  We  see  that  a  consciousness  may  be 
relatively  simple  or  relatively  complex;  it  may  embrace  few 
psychic  elements  or  many.  We  see  that  groups  of  psychic  ele- 
ments may  be  taken  from  or  added  to  a  consciousness,  and  that, 
so  long  as  they  are  a  part  of  it,  they  share  in  its  unity,  whatever 
that  may  mean.  We  see  that  two  groups  of  psychic  elements, 
two  consciousnesses,  may  be  referred  to  the  one  organism ;  and 
we  have  seen  that,  under  certain  circumstances,  such  separate 
groups  may  coalesce  to  form  but  one  consciousness.  Thus  we  are 
impelled  to  distinguish  between  the  psychic  elements  themselves, 
the  content  of  consciousness,  and  the  unity  in  which  they  seem  to 
share.  This  distinction  M.  Janet  brings  to  the  surface  in  the  two 
operations  above  described.  Can  the  metaphysician  follow  him  ? 
How  is  he  to  conceive  of  the  unity  of  consciousness?  What  can 
he  understand  by  the  words  ? 

One  thing  appears  to  be  very  clear.  We  gain  absolutely 
nothing  by  having  recourse  to  the  traditional  "  substratum  " 
self  or  "  unit-being,"  or  to  the  super-temporal  neo-Kantian  ac- 
tivity affected  by  Green.1  Is  it  the  one  self  or  "activity" 
that  is  to  explain  the  unity  of  each  of  the  two  consciousnesses 
revealed  by  the  one  organism  ?  Then  how  does  it  happen  that 
there  are  two  separate  consciousnesses  ?  Is  it  in  each  case  a 
different  self  or  "activity"?  Then  how  does  it  happen  that 
the  two  consciousnesses  may  melt  into  one  ?  Do  the  selves  or 
"  activities "  telescope  ?  I  recommend  the  hypothesis  to  the 
serious  consideration  of  the  disciples  of  Green,  for  no  behavior 
is  too  eccentric  to  be  attributed  to  the  entity  for  which  he  has 
made  himself  advocate. 

We  have  seen  that  M.  Janet  makes  the  self  or  personality  to 
consist  of  a  group  of  psychic  elements.  There  appears  to  be  no 
question  of  a  "  substratum  "  self.  This  is,  so  far,  good  psycho- 
logical doctrine.  But  we  have  seen,  also,  that  he  conceives  this 
group  to  be  synthetized  by  an  activity.  Touching  this  activity 
he  writes  :  "  As  the  ancient  philosophers  maintained,  to  exist  is 
to  act  and  to  create,  and  consciousness,  which  is  in  the  highest 
degree  a  reality,  is  by  that  very  fact  an  operating  activity.  This 
activity,  if  we  seek  to  represent  to  ourselves  its  nature,  is  above 

1  See  Chapter  V. 


The  Unity  of  Consciousness  479 

all  a  synthetic  activity  which  unites  a  greater  or  lesser  number 
of  given  phenomena  into  a  new  phenomenon  differing  from  its 
elements.  This  constitutes  a  veritable  creation,  for,  from  every 
possible  point  of  view,  'multiplicity  cannot  of  itself  give  birth 
to  unity,'  and  the  act  through  which  heterogeneous  elements  are 
united  in  a  new  form  is  not  given  in  the  elements.  At  the 
moment  at  which,  for  the  first  time,  a  rudimentary  creature 
united  certain  phenomena  in  order  to  make  of  them  the  vague 
sensation  of  pain,  there  was  in  the  world  a  veritable  creation. 
This  creation  is  repeated  for  every  new  being  which  succeeds  in 
forming  a  consciousness  of  this  kind,  for,  properly  speaking,  this 
consciousness  which  has  just  come  into  being  did  not  exist  in  the 
world  before  and  seems  to  spring  from  nothing.  Consciousness 
is  then  in  itself,  from  the  first  moment  of  its  existence,  a  syn- 
thetic activity."  l 

This  reads,  I  confess,  as  though  it  had  been  written  by  one 
touched  by  the  influences  that  moulded  the  thought  of  Green. 
M.  Janet  has,  at  the  close  of  his  book,  abandoned  the  fields  which 
he  has  cultivated  with  such  signal  success,  for  an  excursion  upon 
a  strip  of  country  over  which  we  are  all  in  danger  of  wandering 
somewhat  at  random.  One  is  tempted  to  ask :  Is  consciousness 
something  different  from  the  totality  of  mental  phenomena  ? 
And  can  a  consciousness  which  is  created  when  some  creature 
has  succeeded  in  uniting  a  multiplicity  of  psychic  elements,  be 
itself  the  cause  of  the  synthesis  which  is,  as  it  seems,  the  occasion 
of  its  coming  into  being  ?  Is  it  not  the  creature  which  is  creative 
cause  rather  than  the  consciousness  ?  Moreover,  if  consciousness 
is,  from  the  first  moment  of  its  existence,  a  synthetic  activity, 
has  M.  Janet  the  right  to  regard  the  "mental  dust"  of  his  first 
operation  as  consisting  of  sensations,  conscious,  but  not  grouped 
in  such  a  way  as  to  form  a  personal  perception  ? 

However,  upon  such  questions  as  these  I  shall  not  dwell.  I 
wish,  rather,  to  discuss  a  matter  which  seems  to  set  the  whole 
problem  of  the  synthetic  activity  in  a  new  light.  Let  us  return 
to  the  above-mentioned  psychic  dust  and  consider  the  relation  of 
its  particles  to  one  another. 

In  the  last  diagram  given  above,  each  of  the  particles  of 
mental  dust  T  T" M  M"  V  is  represented  as  being  as  completely 
cut  off  from  every  other  particle  and  from  the  personal  perceptions 

1  Op.  cit. ,  pp.  483-484. 


480  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

P  and  P',  as  are  the  latter  from  each  other.  But  the  latter  are 
two  distinct  consciousnesses,  and  are  related  to  each  other  as 
distinct  consciousnesses  are  always  related  to  each  other.  In 
discussing  the  doctrine  of  parallelism  I  have  pointed  out1  that 
we  are  not  to  fall  into  the  vulgar  error  of  giving  to  a  conscious- 
ness literally  a  position  in  space,  as  though  it  were  a  material 
thing  ;  and  I  have  shown  later2  in  what  sense,  and  in  what  sense 
alone,  we  may  speak  of  the  time  and  place  of  mental  phenomena. 
To  conceive  of  two  minds  as  side  by  side  each  other  in  space, 
to  think  of  them  as  near  to  each  other  or  far  from  each  other, 
because  the  bodies  to  which  they  are  referred  are  separated  by  a 
lesser  or  a  greater  distance,  is  manifestly  absurd.  I  may  measure 
the  distance  between  the  two  bodies,  but  it  is  nonsense  to  speak 
of  measuring  the  distance  between  the  two  minds.  Nor  is  it  other- 
wise in  the  case  in  which  the  two  minds  are  referred  to  the  one 
organism.  Lucie  and  Adrienne,  as  consciousnesses,  are  no  nearer 
to  each  other  than  Lucie  and  M.  Janet,  or  than  the  President  of 
the  United  States  and  the  Emperor  of  China.  The  words  near 
and  far  have  no  significance  in  such  a  connection. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  we  must  not  take  our  diagram  too  se- 
riously. It  is  easy  for  me  to  set  down  on  the  one  bit  of  paper 
twelve  dots  in  a  row,  and  to  say  that  the  twelve  dots  represent 
twelve  simple  sensations,  no  one  of  which  belongs  to  the  same 
consciousness  with  any  other.  It  is  easy  for  me  to  draw  lines 
connecting  four  of  these  dots  with  a  point  P  and  three  others 
with  a  point  P1.  I  may  then  say  that  the  four  connected 
together  in  the  one  case  and  the  three  connected  together  in 
the  other  represent,  respectively,  a  consciousness  consisting  of 
four  elements  and  a  consciousness  consisting  of  three.  The 
dots,  as  I  set  them  down,  may  have  for  me  a  definite  significance. 
Whether  a  simple  sensation  may  actually  have  an  independent 
existence  and  constitute  a  little  consciousness  all  by  itself,  or 
whether  it  may  not,  the  conception  of  such  an  entity  is  in  no  wise 
an  absurd  one.  Who  can  say  how  poor  in  content  a  consciousness 
may  be,  and  yet  continue  to  exist  ?  And  the  groups  of  dots  so 
connected  may  also  have  a  significance.  That  a  consciousness 
may  be  complex  and  may  consist  of  a  greater  or  less  number  of 
elements,  few  are  tempted  to  deny.  But  how  shall  we  conceive  of 
the  process  by  which  three  or  four  little  consciousnesses  are  fused 
into  one  larger  one  ? 

1  Chapter  XX.  2  Chapter  XXIV. 


The  Unity  of  Consciousness  481 

It  may  be  said  that  we  may  accept  the  fact  that  there  is  a  syn- 
thesis without  feeling  under  obligation  to  describe  how  it  is  ac- 
complished. To  this  I  answer,  we  have  no  right  to  use  the  word 
"  synthesis  "  without  having  some  notion,  if  only  a  vague  one,  of 
what  the  word  means  as  we  use  it.  I  can  spread  out  twelve  pebbles 
in  a  row,  and  then,  by  a  sweep  of  my  hand,  gather  together  four  of 
them.  The  pebbles  exist  side  by  side  ;  they  are  parts  of  the  one 
world ;  they  are  separated  by  distances  which  can  be  diminished ; 
I  can  bring  four  of  them  together  and  leave  the  rest  scattered  as 
before.  The  word  "  synthesis  "  has  here  a  meaning.  There  are  the 
moving  fingers,  which  are  in  the  same  world  with  the  pebbles,  and 
which  we  regard  as  agent  ;  there  is  a  change  in  the  space  relations 
of  the  pebbles,  and  this  we  regard  as  an  effect  of  the  activity  of  the 
agent.  Nothing  in  the  transaction  is  occult ;  nothing  is  incom- 
prehensible. The  pebbles  were  before  apart,  that  is,  they  were 
separated  by  greater  distances  ;  they  are  now  together,  that  is,  the 
distances  have  been  diminished.  May  we  suppose  that  something 
analogous  to  this  must  take  place  if  four  little  consciousnesses 
become  one  larger  one  ?  Manifestly  not.  The  consciousnesses  have 
not  been  brought  together  in  any  manner  even  remotely  analogous 
to  that  in  which  the  pebbles  have  been  brought  together.  They 
were  not  at  a  distance  from  each  other  before;  they  were  not 
scattered  portions  of  the  one  world  ;  they  simply  belonged  to  dif- 
ferent orders.  Each  inhabited,  or  rather  each  constituted,  a  world 
of  its  own,  not  continuous  with  the  world  constituted  by  any  one 
of  the  others.  How  shall  we  conceive  an  agent  of  any  sort  to 
"  synthetize  "  such  worlds  into  a  larger  world  ? 

But,  one  may  protest,  these  little  consciousnesses  were,  at  least, 
in  some  sense  apart,  and  now  they  are  together;  may  we  not  leave 
to  one  side  the  notion  of  their  being  brought  together,  and  simply 
accept  the  contrasted  facts  ?  I  answer,  undoubtedly  we  may  ac- 
cept the  facts,  but  it  is  of  no  little  importance  not  to  misappre- 
hend them.  We  must  dismiss  from  our  mind,  at  the  outset,  not 
only  all  thought  of  a  hand  sweeping  together  a  number  of  pebbles, 
but  also  all  thought  of  a  hand  holding  together  a  number  of  peb- 
bles, which,  left  to  themselves,  would  fall  and  scatter.  We  must 
understand  the  significance  of  the  words  "  together  "  and  "  apart " 
as  applied  to  mental  phenomena.  In  order  to  do  this,  we  must 
bring  ourselves  to  a  realization  of  how  such  distinctions  have 
arisen. 

2  i 


482  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

"  There  is  no  doubt,"  writes  M.  Janet,  "  that  we  know  psycho- 
logical phenomena  in  other  persons  only  indirectly,  and  psychology 
could  not  begin  with  this  study ;  but  from  actions,  gestures,  and 
language,  we  can  infer  their  existence,  just  as  the  chemist  deter- 
mines the  elements  of  the  stars  by  an  inspection  of  the  lines  in 
the  spectrum ;  the  certitude  attained  in  the  one  case  is  as  good  as 
that  attained  in  the  other."1  "In  reality,"  he1  says  elsewhere, 
"  we  never  know  directly  more  than  the  one  single  consciousness 
—  our  own  at  the  moment  when  we  perceive  it."  2 

That  our  acquaintance  with  consciousness  cannot  begin  in  a 
knowledge  of  other  minds  is  a  commonplace  of  psychology,  and  I 
suppose  no  one  would  care  to  dispute  it.  It  should  not  be  over- 
looked that  this  means  that  our  knowledge  of  mental  phenomena 
cannot  begin  with  a  knowledge  of  them  as  apart.  My  conscious- 
ness was  complex  long  before  I  framed  even  vaguely  the  notion 
of  an  eject,  and,  until  I  framed  this  notion,  I  could  not  possibly 
conceive  of  mental  phenomena  as  apart.  Could  I,  then,  conceive 
of  mental  phenomena  as  together?  Yes,  if  the  word  is  taken  to 
mean  only  that  I  had  a  complex  consciousness ;  no,  if  it  is  assumed 
to  mean  all  that  it  means  to  the  man  who  has  contrasted  objects 
with  ejects.  The  man  who  does  this  sets  objects  as  a  group  over 
against  a  group  of  another  sort ;  as  thus  treated  objects  become  a 
group  ;  their  common  share  in  the  relation  we  are  conceiving  be- 
tween groups  stands  out  as  a  thing  to  be  remarked.  Had  I  never 
framed  the  notion  of  an  eject  it  is  quite  conceivable  (theoretically) 
that  I  should  have  remarked  the  distinction  between  physical  phe- 
nomena and  mental  phenomena,  though,  of  course,  I  could  not  have 
conceived  of  physical  phenomena  as  in  any  sense  the  common 
property  of  various  minds.  But  it  is  not  conceivable  that  I 
should  have  thought  of  my  mind  as  a  mind  in  the  full  meaning  of 
the  term  as  we  commonly  use  it.  It  is  one  thing  to  be  conscious  of 
a  multiplicity  of  mental  phenomena,  and  it  is  another  to  recognize 
these  as  a  consciousness  —  to  think  of  them  as  together  and  not 
apart.  The  problem  of  the  unity  of  consciousness  could  not 
emerge  as  a  problem  in  a  mind  that  had  not  arisen  to  the  concep- 
tion of  an  eject.  It  is  in  the  distinction  of  object  and  eject,  and 
only  in  this  distinction,  that  it  has  its  ground  of  existence. 

Nevertheless,  it  may  be  insisted,  we  do  now  possess  this  dis- 
tinction ;  we  conceive  of  mental  phenomena  as  together,  and  we 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  5.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  29. 


The  Unity  of  Consciousness  483 

conceive  of  them  as  apart  ;  have  we  not  a  right  to  ask  for  an  ex- 
planation of  their  being  together  ?  I  answer,  there  is  not  a  whit 
more  sense  in  asking  for  an  explanation  of  their  being  together, 
than  there  is  in  asking  for  an  explanation  of  their  being  apart. 
Indeed,  it  seems  more  natural,  when  one  understands  the  facts  in 
the  case,  to  ask  for  an  explanation  of  their  being  apart.  Is  it  an 
unnatural  thing  for  consciousness  to  be  complex  ?  Our  first  ac- 
quaintance with  consciousness  is  with  consciousness  as  complex  ; 
it  is  only  later  that  we  build  up  a  notion  of  mental  phenomena  as 
apart.  Have  we  any  reason  for  assuming  that,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  mental  elements  tend  to  become  ejective  to  each  other,  and 
that  they  will  fall  apart  when  let  alone  ?  The  assumption  of  a 
synthetic  activity  to  hold  them  together  is  quite  as  unjustified  by 
anything  in  our  experience  as  would  be  the  assumption  of  a 
separative  activity  which  forces  mental  elements  into  a  state  of 
isolation. 

If  we  are  to  explain  the  possibility  that  mental  phenomena 
may  be  objective  to  each  other,  then  by  all  means  let  us  show  our 
impartiality  by  also  explaining  the  possibility  that  mental  phe- 
nomena may  be  ejective  to  each  other  ;  and  let  us  explain  it  in  the 
same  general  way,  by  the  assumption  of  an  agent  or  an  activity. 
Empedocles  was  consistent  in  assuming  as  a  principle  hate,  as 
well  as  love,  when  he  undertook  to  account  for  the  separation  and 
the  union  of  the  elements. 

But,  although  there  is  no  theoretic  justification  of  the  assump- 
tion of  a  synthetic  activity  to  account  for  the  fact  that  conscious- 
ness may  be  complex,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  impulse  which 
leads  men  to  make  the  gratuitous  assumption  is  itself  inexplicable. 
In  an  earlier  chapter1  I  have  traced  the  process  of  evolution 
which  has  resulted  in  the  inconceivable  synthetic  activity  of 
Green  and  other  Neo-Kantians.  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the 
fact  that  metaphysical  misconceptions  die  very  hard.  They  may 
be  starved  to  mere  shadows,  they  may  become  abstract  absurdities 
so  devoid  of  significance  as  to  offer  no  resistance  to  the  sword  of 
the  logician  and  to  lose  no  blood  because  they  have  none  to  lose  ; 
nevertheless  there  is  always  some  one  eager  to  take  them  by  the 
hand  and  to  offer  them  a  seat  at  his  table.  That  their  behavior  is 
eccentric  and  their  conversation  incoherent  matters  nothing  ;  it  is 
their  ancestry  that  constitutes  their  claim  to  recognition. 

i  Chapter  V. 


484  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

Unreflective  man  could  not  but  recognize  that  his  body  was  in 
a  certain  sense  the  central  point  of  his  experience.  With  his 
eyes  open,  he  saw  other  objects  than  his  body  ;  when  he  laid  his 
hand  on  things,  he  felt  them ;  when  his  ears  were  unstopped,  he 
heard  sounds.  Coming  to  distinguish  with  some  clearness  between 
mind  and  body,  men  carried  over  to  a  new  field  the  relation  here 
remarked,  and  conceived  of  the  mind  as  knowing  the  contents  of 
consciousness  in  some  analogous  manner — as  forming  a  central 
point  to  which  all  were  related.  For  a  while  it  seemed  satisfactory 
to  regard  this  mind  as  the  substance  or  substratum  manifested  by 
mental  phenomena,  not  itself  in  consciousness.  Then,  substrata 
of  all  sorts  falling  into  discredit,  the  duty  of  accounting  for  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  was  laid  upon  something  in  conscious- 
ness, the  activity  discussed  in  the  chapter  above  alluded  to. 
There  is  no  step  in  these  processes  of  transformation  which  cannot 
be  accounted  for  when  its  historic  setting  is  taken  into  account. 

And  at  the  end  of  it  all  where  do  we  find  ourselves  ?  In  the 
last  stronghold  of  the  old  "  faculty "  psychology.  Many  of  us 
were  in  our  youth  taught  to  believe  that  the  mind  perceived  things 
because  it  had  a  perceptive  faculty  ;  that  it  remembered  things 
because  it  had  a  retentive  faculty  ;  that  it  could  recall  what  was 
once  acquired  because  it  had  a  reproductive  faculty  ;  and  that  it 
was  in  the  possession  of  fundamental  truths  because  it  had  a  regu- 
lative faculty.  With  the  development  of  psychology  as  a  science 
all  this  has  been  swept  away.  It  has  been  seen  that  when  one 
makes  such  statements  as  these,  one  really  says  nothing  at  all,  for 
the  faculty  is  a  mere  name  for  the  facts  that  one  is  attempting  to 
account  for.  Nevertheless,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  conscious- 
ness is  complex  because  there  is  a  synthetic  activity  that  makes 
consciousness  complex. 

How  do  we  know  that  there  is  a  synthetic  activity  making 
consciousness  complex  ?  Evidently  because  consciousness  is  com- 
plex. How  do  we  know  that  such  an  activity  can  make  con- 
sciousness complex  ?  Look  at  the  result :  consciousness  is  complex  ; 
what  can  better  synthetize  than  a  synthetic  activity?  In  justice  to 
those  who  reason  in  this  way,  it  is  right  that  I  should  remind  my 
reader  that  no  sensible  man  would  argue  thus  of  his  own  motion 
and  without  some  propulsion  from  the  ages  which  lie  behind  him. 
When  a  misconception  has  escaped  destruction  for  a  considerable 
time,  it  inspires  a  certain  amount  of  respect,  as  do  old  people  who 


The  Unity  of  Consciousness  485 

are  deaf  and  decrepit,  feeble  in  mind  and  body,  but  who  at  least 
have  the  merit  of  being  old.  After  that  it  does  not  die,  and  it 
is  not  easily  killed  ;  it  simply  dries  up  ;  and,  in  calling  at  the 
houses  of  one's  friends,  one  finds  the  withered  survival  making 
visits  in  just  the  places  where  one  would  least  expect  to  meet  it. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  even  acute  minds  should 
plague  themselves  with  what  they  call  "  the  problem  of  the  unity 
of  consciousness."  Nevertheless,  there  is  no  such  problem.  There 
is,  of  course,  the  contrast  of  object  and  eject,  and  we  must  accept 
the  fact  that  a  highly  complex  group  of  phenomena  may  be  con- 
trasted as  object  with  another  group  as  eject.  But  the  general 
fact  that  this  contrast  may  be  between  groups  is  no  more  a  matter 
calling  for  explanation  than  the  fact  that  the  contrast  may  con- 
ceivably be  between  single  mental  elements.  A  problem,  to 
which  no  solution  can  be  given  which  does  not  consist  in  a  mere 
restatement  of  the  terms  of  the  problem,  is  not  a  genuine  prob- 
lem. Why  not  make  the  problem  even  broader  than  it  usually  is 
made?  Why  not  ask  :  How  does  it  happen  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  consciousness  at  all  ?  and  why  not  answer  the  question 
by  the  assumption  of  an  activity  or  faculty  which  is  able  to  make 
possible  a  consciousness  whether  simple  or  complex? 

In  seeking  for  an  explanation  of  such  general  facts  as  these, 
we  have  evidently  stepped  beyond  the  limits  of  the  legitimate 
province  of  explanation.  I  have  a  right  to  seek  for  an  explana- 
tion of  the  fact  that  a  particular  man  at  a  particular  time  has 
a  sensation  of  red  color.  I  may  point  out  that  he  is  standing 
with  open  eyes  before  a  red  lamp,  and  may  conclude  that  his  eyes 
and  nervous  system  are  normal.  That  another  man  standing  in 
the  same  position  does  not  see  the  lamp  as  red,  I  may  regard  as 
explained  when  I  have  studied  the  phenomena  of  color  blindness, 
and  have  concluded  that  there  is  some  defect  in  the  organ  of 
vision.  Such  individual  facts  are  explained  when  they  are  re- 
ferred to  other  individual  facts  within  the  system  to  which  all 
the  facts  belong.  But  to  ask  how  it  can  be  that,  in  such  a  world 
as  this,  there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  a  sensation  of  red,  gen- 
erally considered,  is  to  ask  a  foolish  question.  The  man  who  asks 
it  can  expect  no  better  answer  than  that,  in  such  a  world  as  this, 
there  is  a  reddening  activity  that  is  in  some  occult  way  responsible 
For  the  production  of  sensations  of  red.  When  he  has  received  his 
answer,  he  has  heard  the  echo  of  his  own  question,  and  nothing  more. 


486  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

It  is  the  same  when  we  come  to  study  the  complexity  of  con- 
sciousness. That  a  consciousness  of  a  given  degree  of  complexity 
may  be  revealed  by  a  certain  person  at  a  given  time  is  particular 
fact.  It  is  not  absurd  to  ask  for  an  explanation  of  such  facts,  as 
it  is  not  absurd  to  ask  why  a  particular  man  does  not  see  a  lamp 
to  be  red  when  his  neighbors  do  thus  see  it.  We  are,  to  be-  sure, 
not  in  a  position  to  give  much  of  an  explanation.  We  know  too 
little  of  the  human  mind  and  of  its  relation  to  the  body  to  explain 
such  facts  in  detail.  It  is,  however,  not  inconceivable  that  we 
may  some  day  know  much  more,  and  may  be  in  a  position  to  give 
them  what  may  properly  be  called  an  explanation.  It  seems  im- 
possible that  a  brain  at  the  time  when  it  reveals  a  normal  devel- 
oped consciousness  should  be  in  precisely  the  same  condition  as  it 
is  when  this  consciousness  has  been  robbed  of  a  large  part  of  its 
content.  What  is  the  actual  condition  of  the  brain  in  either  case 
is  unknown  to  us ;  but  it  may  become  known.  When  it  is  known, 
we  shall  be  able  to  relate  fact  to  fact  and  thus  explain  fact.  But 
it  is  not  conceivable  that  any  extension  of  our  knowledge  should 
make  of  any  real  service  in  explanation  the  hypothetical  synthetic 
activity  which  I  have  discussed  above.  It  is  not  a  new  fact ;  it  is 
a  mere  form  of  words. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  M.  Janet,  who  is  possessed  of  the 
true  instinct  of  the  investigator  of  nature,  and  who  has  a  nice 
sense  of  the  meaning  of  the  term  "  explanation,"  makes  no  more 
actual  use  of  the  synthetic  activity  which  he  assumes,  than  does 
the  student  of  natural  science  of  the  conception  of  "  substratum  " 
in  explaining  the  properties  of  the  bodies  which  he  finds  before 
him.  In  certain  hysterical  subjects  he  has  observed  a  tendency 
to  "mental  disintegration."  Does  he  attempt  to  point  out  that, 
in  such  persons,  the  mental  synthetic  activity  is  in  fact  weaker 
than  in  normal  persons?  Not  at  all.  "La  misere  psychologique  " 
does  not  betray  itself  directly  as  a  diminution  of  synthetic  force. 
It  is  proved  to  be  a  "  misere  "  by  the  fact  that  the  phenomena 
under  discussion  may  make  their  appearance  as  a  result  of  hemor- 
rhages, of  phthisis,  of  typhoid  fever,  of  the  administering  of  toxic 
substances  ;  as  also  by  the  fact  that  they  may  be  made  to  disap- 
pear sometimes  by  making  the  subject  eat  and  sleep,  thus  inducing 
a  condition  of  increased  bodily  vigor.1 

This  is  a  legitimate  attempt  at  explanation.  Facts  are  con- 
1  Op.  tit.,  p.  453. 


The  Unity  of  Consciousness  487 

nected  with  facts,  and  a  basis  is  laid  for  a  science.  If  what  takes 
place  in  the  brain  is  unknown,  at  least  mental  phenomena  may  be 
explained  by  a  reference  to  facts  which  stand  at  one  or  two 
removes  from  them.  It  is  thus  that  we  explain  a  man's  anger 
when  we  find  that  some  one  has  trodden  upon  his  toe,  or  his  grief 
when  a  telegram  has  been  put  into  his  hands.  The  synthetic 
activity  has  plainly  so  little  to  do  with  the  whole  matter  that  its 
presence  can  be  explained  in  M.  Janet's  volume,  and  in  many  other 
works  by  acute  and  erudite  authors,  only  as  a  survival,  and  as  a 
testimony  to  the  conservative  tendencies  in  human  nature. 


CHAPTER  XXX 
SUBCONSCIOUS  MIND 

WE  hear  a  great  deal,  at  the  present  day,  about  subconscious 
mind,  and  it  is  worth  our  while  to  delay  a  little  over  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  phrase.  It  is  important  to  remark  that  the  phrase 
is  an  ambiguous  one,  and  may  easily  betray  the  man  who  uses  it 
incautiously  into  saying  what  is  absurd  and  meaningless. 

We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapters  that  more  than  the 
one  consciousness  may  be  referred  to  the  one  organism.  We  may 
accept  one  of  the  consciousnesses  as  the  normal  one,  and  class 
together  all  the  other  mental  phenomena,  whose  presence  may 
seem  to  be  indicated,  as  subconscious. 

Of  course,  when  we  speak  thus,  we  should  not  mean  that  the 
mental  phenomena  in  question  are  not  mental  phenomena.  Ex- 
clusion from  a  given  consciousness  does  not  imply  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  phenomena  excluded,  whether  we  are  concerned 
with  groups  of  phenomena  referred  to  two  or  more  different  or- 
ganisms or  with  groups  of  phenomena  referred  to  the  one  organ- 
ism. Nor  does  exclusion  from  a  given  consciousness  seem  to  be 
in  itself  a  reason  for  denying  that  the  mental  phenomena  in  ques- 
tion are  just  the  sort  of  mental  phenomena  with  which  each  of 
us  is  directly  acquainted  —  for  denying  that  they  constitute  a 
consciousness.  The  existence  of  the  phenomena  in  question  has 
not  been  gratuitously  assumed.  They  have  been  proved  to  exist 
by  the  adduction  of  precisely  the  same  sort  of  evidence  as  has 
been  adduced  to  prove  that  there  exist  consciousnesses  related 
to  the  bodies  of  other  men.  The  adjective  subconscious  does 
not  seem  to  be  well  chosen  when  it  is  used  in  the  description 
of  such  phenomena.  It  may,  it  is  true,  serve  to  point  out  that 
they  are  to  be  recognized  as  excluded  from  a  given  consciousness, 
but  it  certainly  suggests  that  the  phenomena  in  question  differ 
in  kind  from  those  with  which  we  are  familiar  ;  subconscious  may 
easily  be  understood  to  mean  unconscious. 

488 


Subconscious  Mind  489 

Again.  I  have  earlier1  dwelt  upon  the  fact  that  all  that  is 
present  in  consciousness  at  any  one  time  is  not  recognized  as 
present  with  the  same  degree  of  clearness  and  vividness.  Some 
things  stand  out  distinctly  and  unmistakably,  and  some  lie  in 
comparative  obscurity.  An  element  in  our  experience  which  has 
occupied,  so  to  speak,  the  foreground  of  consciousness,  may  come 
to  lose  its  prominence,  and  may  pass  gradually  into  an  obscurity 
which  makes  it  difficult  to  be  sure  that  it  is  present  in  conscious- 
ness at  all.  A  careful  study  of  those  elements  which  compose 
the  dim  background  of  our  conscious  life,  a  study  which  cannot 
be  carried  out  by  the  aid  of  direct  introspection  alone,  seems  to 
reveal  the  fact  that,  in  thus  losing  their  vividness,  our  conscious 
experiences  do  not  approach,  and  finally  reach,  a  definitely  marked 
threshold  which  can  be  perceived  to  limit  their  downward  prog- 
ress. We  do  not  find  that  they  reach  a  clear  line,  and  are  sud- 
denly cut  off ;  we  find  rather  that  they  pass  into  a  misty  region 
in  which  their  existence  or  non-existence  at  a  given  time  may  be 
a  legitimate  subject  of  dispute,  and  may  have  to  be  established 
laboriously,  perhaps  rather  uncertainly,  and  by  the  employment 
of  roundabout  methods  of  proof.  In  other  words,  the  limits  of 
our  conscious  life  are  not  well-defined  limits  ;  it  fades  out  gradu- 
ally, and  is  not  seen  to  cease  abruptly. 

Now  the  term  "  subconscious  "  may  be  used  to  describe  a  sen- 
sation which  is  thus  dimly  existent,  a  sensation  so  faint  that  we 
can  prove  it  to  exist  only  indirectly  and  without  the  highest  con- 
fidence in  our  conclusion.  It  is  evident  that,  when  we  thus  use 
the  term,  the  limits  of  its  application  must  be  a  matter  of  conven- 
tion. How  dim  and  faint  must  a  sensation  be  to  have  a  right 
to  be  classed  as  subconscious  ?  We  are  concerned  with  the  ques- 
tion of  degree,  and  not  with  the  question  of  kind.  We  recognize 
subconscious  sensations  as  differing  from  one  another,  and  as 
differing  from  conscious  sensations,  just  as  the  latter  differ  among 
themselves.  There  are  differences  of  vividness  all  along  the  line  •, 
nature  does  not  make  a  flying  leap  which  enables  us  to  say  offhand 
that  a  sensation  must  be  relegated  to  the  one  class  or  to  the  other. 

There  is,  however,  still  another  sense  in  which  men  may  con- 
ceive, and  have  conceived,  mental  elements  to  be  subconscious. 
They  may  conceive  them  to  be,  not  other  consciousness  nor  a  dim 
consciousness,  but  actually  unconscious. 

1  Chapter  III. 


490  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

I  cannot  better  bring  this  view  before  my  reader  than  by 
using  as  an  illustration  the  doctrine  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,1 
who  maintains  the  existence  of  unconscious  mental  modifications, 
and  supports  his  position  by  urging  a  variety  of  considerations. 
Sir  William  distinguishes  between  consciousness  and  the  mental 
phenomena  of  which  consciousness  takes  cognizance.  He  com- 
pares consciousness  to  an  inner  light,  which  illumines  unequally 
the  varied  content  with  which  it  has  to  do.  Some  of  the  phe- 
nomena receive  its  full  brilliance,  and  are  known  clearly  and 
vividly  ;  some  receive  but  a  moderate  degree  of  illumination 
and  are  less  vividly  perceived.  But  the  things  of  which  con- 
sciousness takes  cognizance  whether  vividly  or  dimly  do  not 
constitute  by  any  means  the  whole  furniture  of  the  mind.  There 
is  much  that  is  latent,  much  that  lies  quite  beyond  the  bounds  of 
consciousness  and  can  only  be  inferred  to  exist.  Among  such 
latent  mental  furniture  Hamilton  classes  all  those  things  which 
we  regard  ourselves  as  knowing,  —  sciences,  languages,  and  the 
like,  —  but  of  which  we  may  not  happen  to  be  thinking  at  a  given 
time.  "  The  infinitely  greater  part  of  our  spiritual  treasures," 
he  writes,  "lies  always  beyond  the  sphere  of  consciousness,  hid 
in  the  obscure  recesses  of  the  mind."  This  he  calls  the  first 
degree  of  latency. 

The  second  degree  exists  when  the  mind  contains  certain  sys- 
tems of  knowledge,  or  certain  habits  of  action,  which  it  is  uncon- 
scious of  possessing  when  in  its  ordinary  state,  but  which  are 
revealed  to  consciousness  in  certain  extraordinary  exaltations  of 
its  powers.  Thus,  in  madness,  febrile  delirium,  somnambulism, 
etc.,  it  may  be  revealed  that  the  mind  is  in  possession  of  that 
which,  under  normal  circumstances,  it  could  not  be  suspected  of 
possessing.  The  extinct  memory  of  whole  languages  may  be 
suddenly  restored,  and  the  subject  of  the  disorder  may  be 
found  capable  of  repeating  accurately,  in  known  or  unknown 
tongues,  passages  which  were  never  within  the  grasp  of  the 
memory  in  the  normal  state.2 

The  third  degree  or  class  embraces  the  mental  modifications, 
of  which  we  are  unconscious,  but  which  manifest  their  existence 

1  "  Lectures  on  Metaphysics."     See  especially  Lecture  XVIII,  but  see  also  XI, 
XIII,  XIV,  and  XVII. 

2  It  is  beside  my  purpose  to  comment  upon   the   much   discussed    illustrations 
which  Hamilton  brings  forward  in  support  of  this  second  degree  of  latence. 


Subconscious  Mind  491 

by  effects  of  which  we  are  conscious.  For  the  existence  of  such 
Hamilton  adduces  evidence  of  three  kinds. 

His  first  argument  is  as  follows :  "  You  are  of  course  aware, 
in  general,  that  vision  is  the  result  of  the  rays  of  light,  reflected 
from  the  surface  of  objects  to  the  eye  ;  a  greater  number  of  rays 
is  reflected  from  a  larger  surface  ;  if  the  superficial  extent  of  an 
object,  and,  consequently,  the  number  of  rays  which  it  reflects, 
be  diminished  beyond  a  certain  limit,  the  object  becomes  invisible  ; 
and  the  minimum  visibile  is  the  smallest  expanse  which  can  be  seen, 
—  which  can  consciously  affect  us,  —  which  we  can  be  conscious 
of  seeing.  This  being  understood,  it  is  plain  that  if  we  divide 
this  minimum  visibile  into  two  parts,  neither  half  can,  by  itself,  be 
an  object  of  vision,  or  visual  consciousness.  They  are,  severally 
and  apart,  to  consciousness  as  zero.  But  it  is  evident,  that  each 
half  must,  by  itself,  have  produced  in  us  a  certain  modification, 
real  though  unperceived  ;  for  as  the  perceived  whole  is  nothing 
but  the  union  of  the  unperceived  halves,  so  the  perception  —  the 
perceived  affection  itself  of  which  we  are  conscious  —  is  only  the 
sum  of  two  modifications,  each  of  which  severally  eludes  our 
consciousness.  When  we  look  at  a  distant  forest,  we  perceive  a 
certain  expanse  of  green.  Of  this,  as  an  affection  of  our  organism, 
we  are  clearly  and  distinctly  conscious.  Now,  the  expanse  of 
which  we  are  conscious  is  evidently  made  up  of  parts  of  which  we 
are  not  conscious.  No  leaf,  perhaps  no  tree,  may  be  separately 
visible.  But  the  greenness  of  the  forest  is  made  up  of  the  green- 
ness of  the  leaves  ;  that  is,  the  total  impression  of  which  we  are 
conscious  is  made  up  of  an  infinitude  of  small  impressions  of  which 
we  are  not  conscious."  l 

So  it  is  in  the  case  of  every  sense.  The  distant  murmur  of  the 
sea  is  a  sum  made  up  of  parts,  and  the  sum  would  be  as  nothing  if 
the  individual  parts  did  not  count  as  something.  The  noise  of 
each  wave,  at  the  distance  supposed,  is  inaudible,  but  we  must 
assume"  that  it  produces  a  mental  effect  beyond  consciousness,  or 
there  would  be  no  hearing  of  the  murmur. 

A  second  argument  is  drawn  from  the  fact  that  one  thought 
may  immediately  suggest  another  with  which  it  does  not  appear 
to  be  bound  by  any  link  of  association  which  would  account  for 
the  transition.  For  example,  the  thought  of  Ben  Lomond  is  imme- 
diately followed  in  Hamilton's  mind  by  the  thought  of  the  Prus- 

1  Lecture  XVIII. 


492  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

sian  system  of  education.  There  appears  to  be  no  connection 
between  the  ideas.  A  little  reflection,  however,  recalls  to  him  the 
fact  that,  on  his  last  visit  to  the  mountain,  he  met  with  a  German 
gentleman  ;  and  he  concludes  that  he  may  interpolate  three  sub- 
merged links  of  association  between  the  two  conscious  ideas  the 
lack  of  connection  between  which  puzzles  him.  These  three  links 
are  the  German,  Germany,  and  Prussia ;  they  remain  in  the  region 
of  the  unconscious,  and  betray  their  existence  only  by  what  they 
do  in  consciousness. 

The  last  argument  is  drawn  from  the  field  of  our  acquired 
habits  and  dexterities.  We  learn  to  play  on  the  piano,  for 
example,  slowly  and  laboriously.  At  first  every  movement  must 
receive  individual  attention.  But  there  comes  a  time  when, 
although  we  are  conscious  in  a  general  way  of  what  we  are  doing, 
and  will  to  perform  the  series  of  movements  as  a  series,  yet  we  are 
not  conscious  of  the  separate  movements  individually.  Such  facts 
as  these  must  be  explained  as  follows :  "  Some  minimum  of  time 
must  be  admitted  as  the  condition  of  consciousness  ;  and  as  time  is 
divisible  ad  infinitum,  whatever  minimum  be  taken,  there  must  be 
admitted  to  be,  beyond  the  cognizance  of  consciousness,  intervals 
of  time  in  which,  if  mental  agencies  be  performed,  these  will  be 
latent  to  consciousness.  If  we  suppose  that  the  minimum  of  time 
to  which  consciousness  can  descend,  be  an  interval  called  six,  and 
that  six  different  movements  be  performed  in  this  interval,  these, 
it  is  evident,  will  appear  to  consciousness  as  a  single  indivisible 
point  of  modified  time  ;  precisely  as  the  minimum  visibile  appears  as 
an  indivisible  point  of  modified  space.  And  as  in  the  extended 
parts  of  the  minimum  visibile  each  must  determine  a  certain  modi- 
fication on  the  percipient  subject,  seeing  that  the  effect  of  the 
whole  is  only  the  conjoined  effect  of  its  parts,  in  like  manner 
the  protended  parts  of  each  conscious  instant,  —  of  each  distin- 
guishable minimum  of  time,  —  though  themselves  beyond  the  ken 
of  consciousness,  must  contribute  to  give  the  character  to  the 
whole  mental  state  which  that  instant,  that  minimum,  comprises. 
This  being  understood,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  we  lose  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  several  acts  in  the  rapid  succession  of  many  of  our 
habits  and  dexterities.  At  first,  and  before  the  habit  is  acquired, 
every  act  is  slow,  and  we  are  conscious  of  the  effort  of  deliberation, 
choice,  and  volition  ;  by  degrees  the  mind  proceeds  with  less  vac- 
illation and  uncertainty  ;  at  length  the  acts  become  secure  and 


Subconscious  Mind  493 

precise  ;  in  proportion  as  this  takes  place,  the  velocity  of  the  pro- 
cedure is  increased,  and  as  this  acceleration  rises,  the  individual 
acts  drop  one  by  one  from  consciousness,  as  we  lose  the  leaves  in 
retiring  farther  and  farther  from  the  tree,  and,  at  last,  we  are  only 
aware  of  the  general  state  which  results  from  these  unconscious 
operations,  as  we  can  at  last  only  perceive  the  greenness  which 
results  from  the  unperceived  leaves."  1 

I  have  thought  it  worth  while  to  dwell  upon  Hamilton's  doc- 
trine because  he  discusses  so  clearly  the  theory  of  the  existence  of 
unconscious  mental  elements  that  his  statement  of  it  has  by  no 
means  been  superseded  by  what  has  been  said  on  the  subject 
since.2  Recent  advances  in  the  science  of  psychology  furnish 
added  reasons  for  rejecting  his  conclusions,  but  no  considerations 
have  been  advanced  in  support  of  the  theory  which  are  distinctly 
different  in  kind  from  those  urged  by  Sir  William  more  than  half 
a  century  ago. 

Before  discussing  his  position  let  me  point  out  that  it  is  incom- 
patible with  the  account  of  consciousness  given  in  this  volume. 

It  recognizes  a  region  of  mind  which  may  properly  be  called 
unconscious.  It  distinguishes  between  consciousness  itself  and 
the  various  elements  of  which  it  takes  cognizance ;  for  example, 
between  the  consciousness  of  having  a  sensation  of  blue  color  and 
the  sensation  of  blue  color  in  itself  considered.  But  conscious- 
ness, as  I  have  used  the  term,  is  but  a  name  for  the  whole  body 
of  sensations  and  ideas  and  the  relations  which  obtain  between 
them.  It  is  not  something  superadded  to  these  and  numerically 
distinct  from  them.  It  is  not  an  inner  light,  nor  a  peculiar 
activity,  nor  a  limited  region  in  which  things  appear  and  from 
which  they  pass  to  continue  their  existence  in  some  region  of  a 
different  kind.  Consciousness  is  in  no  wise  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  things  in  consciousness,  and  the  word  is  but  a  conven- 
ient term  to  denote  these  things  taken  as  a  whole.  I  shall  not  here 
repeat  what  I  have  said  elsewhere  3  in  justification  of  this  use  of 
the  term.  I  shall  merely  remind  the  reader  that  it  has  been 
rather  a  common  failing  among  the  philosophers  to  distinguish 
between  the  wood  and  the  trees  in  the  wood,  and  then  to  miscon- 
ceive the  distinction. 

1  Lecture  XIX.  s  Chapter  IV. 

2  There  is,  moreover,  a  certain  convenience  in  taking  for  criticism  a  statement 
with  which  I  may  assume  many  of  my  readers  to  be  familiar. 


494  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

But  let  us  turn  to  a  more  detailed  criticism  of  Sir  William's 
doctrine,  and  let  us  consider  first  the  first  two  degrees  of  latency 
for  which  he  argues.  Every  one  admits  that  the  storehouse  of 
memory  is  full  of  things  of  which,  at  a  given  time,  we  may  not 
happen  to  be  thinking,  and  sometimes  phenomena  are  brought  to 
our  notice  which  lead  us  to  suspect  that  it  is  much  fuller  than  we 
commonly  suppose  it  to  be.  In  writing  the  last  sentence  I  have 
made  use  of  a  metaphor  drawn  from  the  field  of  material  existence, 
and  there  is  no  objection  to  my  doing  so,  provided  my  metaphor 
—  a  common  one  —  does  not  mislead  me.  When  I  speak  of  my 
spiritual  treasures  as  "  hid  in  the  obscure  recesses  of  the  mind," 
I  may  mean  nothing  more  than  that  I  may  recollect  many  things 
which  I  do  not  at  all  times  recollect  ;  and,  if  I  mean  nothing 
more,  I  am  expressing  an  undoubted  truth.  If,  however,  I  mean 
to  maintain  that  all  the  mental  experiences  which  have  ever  had  a 
place  in  my  consciousness  continue  to  exist  from  that  time  on, 
somewhat  as  did  the  treasures  which  Ali  Baba  found  concealed  in 
the  robbers'  cave,  I  make  a  statement  which  should  by  no  means 
be  accepted  without  careful  examination. 

Nevertheless,  such  is  Sir  William  Hamilton's  conception  of  the 
contents  of  the  memory.  They  lie  in  the  dark  until  such  time  as 
something  serves  to  draw  them  once  more  into  the  light  ;  that 
they  do  exist  in  the  dark  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  recover  them  ;  one  cannot  recover  the  non-existent.  The 
matter  appears  to  be  so  plain  to  Sir  William,  that  he  does  not  find 
it  necessary  to  adduce  any  argument  in  favor  of  the  continued 
existence  of  past  experiences  except  the  fact  of  recollection. 

Now  it  will  be  remembered  that,  in  Chapter  XXVIII,  I  spoke 
of  consciousness  as  being  protensively  extended.  I  pointed  out 
that  we  do  not  consider  the  consciousness  of  a  man  to  be  a  thing 
of  the  moment  merely  ;  it  may  stretch  over  a  number  of  years. 
We  conceive  of  the  total  consciousness  as  an  indefinite  series  of 
phenomena,  most  of  which  are  past,  some  of  which  are  present. 
Each  experience  has  some  definite  place  in  the  series ;  it  is  the 
experience  of  a  given  moment,  and  two  similar  experiences  can  be 
distinguished  as  two  from  the  fact  that  they  are  referred  to  differ- 
ent points  in  the  series.  If  I  have  a  toothache  on  a  certain  day 
in  my  twenty-first  year,  and  a  very  similar  toothache  on  a  certain 
day  in  my  forty-first,  I  am  in  no  danger  of  supposing  that  the 
two  experiences  are  strictly  identical,  i.e.  that  I  have  had  but  the 


Subconscious  Mind  495 

one  experience.  One  cannot  have  the  one  experience  on  two  differ- 
ent occasions  —  that  is  not  what  we  mean  by  the  one  experience. 

Thus  the  experience  of  the  one  moment  is  never  identical  with 
the  experience  of  another.  This  fact  is  perfectly  well  recognized 
by  the  psychologists,  who  are  continually  telling  us  that  a  "  feel- 
ing "  once  gone,  can  never  return ;  it  can  only  be  replaced  by 
another  feeling.  And  the  fact  is  recognized  just  as  clearly  by  Sir 
William  himself,  who  takes  exception  energetically  to  Reid's  doc- 
trine that  memory  is  an  immediate  knowledge  of  the  past.  A 
thing  can  only  be  immediately  known,  he  argues,  if  it  be  known 
in  itself,  and  it  can  only  be  known  in  itself  if  it  be  actually 
existent.  But  the  past  is  past,  and  cannot  be  existent.  Memory 
is  an  act  of  knowledge,  and  can  only  be  cognizant  of  a  now-exist- 
ent object.  Hence  we  must  conclude  that  memory  is  not  an  im- 
mediate but  a  mediate  knowledge  of  the  past.1  All  of  which  is 
Sir  William's  way  of  recognizing  the  fact  that  it  is  proper  to 
draw  a  distinction  between  a  past  experience  and  the  present 
thought  of  the  past  experience,  as  it  certainly  is. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  experience  which  is  actually  present 
in  an  act  of  recollection  is  not  the  original  experience  at  all,  but 
is  a  new  one,  and  that  every  moment  must  have  its  own  experi- 
ence, which  cannot  be  transferred  to  the  next  moment.  What 
would  we  think  of  Ali  Baba's  powers  of  reasoning  if  he  argued  as 
follows  touching  some  cave  of  his  own  :  I  put  a  certain  bale  of 
goods  into  my  cave  and  shut  the  door  ;  whenever  I  open  it,  I  find 
a  different  bale  there  ;  ergo,  my  bale  must  exist  continuously  in 
the  cave  ?  To  do  Ali  Baba  full  justice,  we  must  suppose  that,  in 
addition  to  the  experiences  we  are  supposing  him  to  have,  he  has 
certain  information  that  no  one  bale  of  goods  can  exist  in  two 
successive  instants,  but  that  each  fills  its  instant  and  is  followed 
by  a  successor,  at  least  so  long  as  bales  are  kept  under  observation. 

Perhaps  one  will  defend  Ali  Baba  by  saying  that,  if  bales  are 
followed  by  bales  in  this  way,  at  least  he  may  assume  that  the 
bale  he  sees  when  he  opens  the  door  is  the  lineal  descendant  of 
the  one  lie  put  in,  and  that  there  has  been  no  moment  at  which 
there  did  not  exist  some  representative  of  the  line.  Similarly, 
some  one  willing  to  defend  Hamilton  may  say  that,  although  it  is 
absurd  to  speak  seriously  of  anything  once  in  consciousness  as 
"  coining  back  again,"  seeing  that  a  past  experience  is  a  past 

1  Lecture  XII. 


496  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

experience  and  the  past  can  never  be  made  present,  yet  the  mere 
fact  that  I  can  now  have  the  conscious  experience  that  I  call  a 
memory  proves  that  between  it  and  the  past  conscious  experience 
of  which  it  is  the  memory  there  has  been  an  unbroken  series  of 
unconscious  experiences  which  makes  the  connection  possible. 

But  how  prove  such  a  statement  ?  The  memory  itself  appears 
to  testify  to  the  existence  of  a  certain  conscious  experience  at  a 
definite  point  in  the  past.  It  is  silent  as  to  the  intermediate  series 
of  unconscious  existences.  My  only  argument  for  their  existence 
appears  to  be  the  assumption  of  an  analogy  between  facts  of  con- 
sciousness and  material  things  —  I  put  half  a  dozen  chairs  into 
a  room,  I  take  them  out  again ;  I  repeat  the  operation,  always  I 
am  handling  the  same  chairs,  and  I  know  that  I  cannot  get  out  of 
a  room  chairs  that  are  not  in  it.  May  it  not  be  so  with  conscious 
experiences,  mental  phenomena?  I  have  an  experience,  I  forget 
it,  or  rather  I  allow  it  to  pass  from  consciousness  ;  then  I  revive  it, 
and  it  is  back  again  in  consciousness.  Could  it  come  back  unless 
it  were  really  one  of  my  possessions? 

Now,  if  one  will  reflect  upon  the  account  of  the  nature  of 
material  things  which  I  have  given  in  earlier  chapters  in  this 
volume,  one  will  see  that  the  analogy  does  not  hold  at  all.  No 
one  means  by  a  material  object,  for  example,  a  chair,  any  single 
experience  of  such  an  object  in  a  consciousness.  A  man  may 
claim,  when  he  has  a  given  experience,  that  he  sees  a  chair,  and 
he  may  equally  well  claim  on  another  occasion,  when  he  has 
another  and  a  different  experience,  that  he  sees  the  same  chair. 
In  saying  this  he  does  not  in  the  least  mean  that  the  two  experi- 
ences are  identical.  He  means  that  they  both  are  recognized  as 
belonging  to  a  certain  complex  group  of  experiences  so  related 
that  each  experience  may  for  certain  purposes  be  taken  as  repre- 
sentative of  all  the  rest.  The  individual  experiences  sink  into 
insignificance,  it  is  the  group  that  is  regarded  as  important.  And 
the  group  is  given  a  place  in  a  much  larger  complex  still,  the 
external  world,  in  which  its  right  to  hold  its  place  is  conceived  to 
be  quite  independent  of  the  fact  that  any  part  of  it  is  actually 
given  in  perception  to  any  one.  Hence  it  is  not  nonsense  to  say 
that  a  chair  exists  when  no  one  is  perceiving  it.  It  is  not  non- 
sense to  say  that  we  take  out  of  a  room  the  same  chair  that  we 
put  into  it.  In  speaking  thus  we  are  referring  to  a  great  com- 
plex of  experiences  and  to  relations  which  obtain  within  it.  We 


Subconscious  Mind  497 

are  abstracting  from  the  fact  that  we,  at  a  given  time,  may  be 
intuitively  conscious  of  this  or  that  representative  of  the  complex. 

When  \ve  are  dealing  with  mental  phenomena,  as  mental  phe- 
nomena, we  are  not  directly  concerned  with  any  such  construct. 
It  is  true,  we  group  a  collection  of  mental  phenomena  together 
and  call  it  a  mind.  But  when  we  have  cleared  away  from  our 
notion  of  a  mind  all  that  is  due  to  the  natural  tendency  to  con- 
ceive of  a  mind  after  the  analogy  of  a  material  thing,  we  find  that 
we  mean  by  a  mind  nothing  more  than  a  consciousness,  a  greater 
or  smaller  group  of  experiences  referred  to  a  material  body  in  the 
way  described  in  Chapter  XXIII.  In  this  group  we  do  not  find 
any  mental  "  things  "  analogous  to  material  things  —  lesser  group- 
ings of  such  a  nature  that  we  find  ourselves  regarding  the  group 
as  present  when  one  of  its  elements  is  present,  or  saying  that  the 
one  thing  continues  to  exist  because  a  given  experience  is  present 
at  the  one  time  and  a  different  experience  at  another.  There  are 
no  mental  "  things  "  of  this  sort,  either  to  the  philosopher  or  to 
the  plain  man.  Mental  phenomena  are  treated  individualistically, 
and  find  their  place  in  the  whole  system  of  our  experiences 
through  the  reference  to  the  one  great  system  which  introduces 
order  into  all  our  experiences,  the  system  of  material  things. 

It  is  a  recognition  of  this  fact  that  leads  the  psychologist  to 
deny  that  a  feeling  can  ever  recur ;  it  is  a  recognition  of  it  that 
had  led  Sir  William  Hamilton  to  deny  that  a  present  memory  can 
be  identical  with  a  past  experience  of  which  it  is  the  memory. 
It  is  a  temporary  forgetfulness  of  this  fact  that  leads  men  to 
speak  of  the  past  as  "  brought  back,"  or  of  a  forgotten  experience 
as  "  revived."  Thus,  the  statement  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
recall  a  past  experience,  were  the  experience  in  question  not 
retained  in  the  treasure-house  of  the  mind,  is  seen  to  draw  all 
its  plausibility  from  the  assumption  that  mental  phenomena,  like 
material  things,  may  have  a  continued  existence  quite  distinguish- 
able from  the  existence  of  the  individual  experiences  in  which 
such  phenomena  are  revealed,  which  is  absurd.  The  mental 
phenomena  are  individual  experiences,  and  there  is  no  such  dis- 
tinction possible.  For  the  existence  of  mental  facts  there  are 
only  two  kinds  of  evidence  :  the  fact  may  be  given  in  conscious- 
ness, or  it  may  be  inferred  to  exist  as  an  eject.  But  each  mental 
fact  has  its  own  time  and  place  of  existing,1  and  cannot  exist  in 

i  See  Chapter  XXIV. 
2  K 


498  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

two  times  or  in  two  places.  To  prove  it  to  exist  at  all,  there 
must  136  evidence  that  it  exists  at  the  particular  time  and  place 
appropriate  to  it.  To  prove  that  it  existed  at  a  given  time,  and 
then  to  say  that  it  probably  continued  to  exist  after  that,  is  absurd. 
The  mental  experience  of  each  moment  must  be  guaranteed  by  its 
own  evidence,  and  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  by 
a  false  analogy.  This  matter  will  perhaps  become  clearer  in  the 
next  chapter,  which  will  discuss  the  eternity  of  matter  and  the 
conservation  of  energy.  I  hope  it  will  then  become  plain  that  we 
do  not,  in  fact,  conceive  of  minds  as  we  do  of  material  things. 

It  will  be  argued,  perhaps,  that  in  the  rest  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  arguments  for  latent  mental  facts  there  is  offered 
what  seems  to  be  direct  proof  that  such  facts  are  in  existence  at 
a  given  moment.  After  the  thought  of  Ben  Lomond  comes  the 
thought  of  the  Prussian  school-system  ;  may  we  not  supply  the 
subconscious  links,  the  German,  Germany,  and  Prussia?  Are 
we  not  here  making  a  legitimate  inference  ? 

Before  admitting  this,  it  is  well  to  call  before  the  mind  all 
possible  alternatives.  In  the  first  place,  we  should  remember 
that  what  we  call  the  laws  of  association  rest  upon  certain  ob- 
served facts.  We  notice  that  ideas  follow  one  another  in  a  given 
order,  and  we  formulate  the  result  of  our  observations.  The  law 
thus  attained  is  an  empirical  one,  and  has  no  greater  authority 
than  the  observations  upon  which  it  is  based.  I  observe  that 
when  B  has  followed  A,  and  C  has  followed  B  once,  it  is  not  un- 
reasonable to  expect  that  the  thought  of  A  will  call  up  the 
thought  of  B,  and  that  thought  the  thought  of  C.  But  suppose 
that  I  find,  on  various  occasions,  that  the  thought  of  C  follows  the 
thought  of  A  immediately.  Shall  I  assume  that  my  first  formu- 
lation, which  makes  each  member  in  the  series  suggest  only  the 
next  member,  was  an  exhaustive  account  of  the  process,  and  shall 
I  determine  to  adjust  my  later  observations  to  this  by  the  assump- 
tion of  the  presence  of  a  link  which  does  not  seem  to  be  present  ? 
Or  shall  I  modify  my  first  formulation  of  the  law  in  such  a  way 
as  to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  my  later  observations  ?  In  the 
absence  of  any  other  considerations  than  those  mentioned,  surely 
the  latter  seems  the  more  reasonable  method  of  procedure. 

Again.  In  Hamilton's  day  certain  parts  of  the  psychological 
field  had  been  very  inadequately  cultivated.  Such  a  conception 
of  a  consciousness  or  of  consciousnesses  connected  with  a  single 


Subconscious  Mind  499 

organism  as  we  have  seen  presented  in  Professor  Janet's  work 
would  have  seemed  to  Sir  William  monstrous.  Is  not  the  ego 
one  and  indivisible  ?  All  the  mental  phenomena,  which  we  have 
any  reason  to  refer  to  the  mind  connected  with  a  single  body, 
must  be  referred  to  the  one  ego.  If  it  does  not  possess  them  con- 
sciously, then  it  must  possess  them  unconsciously  ;  they  must  be 
unconscious  mental  modifications ;  what  else  can  they  be  ? 

Thus  may  a  man  be  misled  by  the  adoption  of  a  metaphysical 
theory.  But  one  who  has  freed  himself  from  this  ancient  preju- 
dice, and  has  gained  some  idea  of  subconscious  mind,  in  the  first 
sense  of  the  words  discussed  in  this  chapter,  need  feel  under  no 
obligation  to  assume  unconscious  ideas  of  any  sort  to  serve  as  a 
link  of  association  between  two  conscious  ideas.  I  have  no  de- 
sire to  defend  the  existence  of  the  German,  Germany,  and  Prussia 
in  the  illustration  discussed  above,  but  to  one  who  feels  that  certain 
ideas  not  in  a  consciousness  must  sometimes  be  assumed  in  order  to 
account  for  certain  other  ideas  in  that  consciousness,  I  may  point 
out  that  in  the  phenomena  of  post-hypnotic  suggestion  we  have 
evidence  of  the  fact  that  ideas  cut  off  from  a  given  consciousness 
as  one  consciousness  is  cut  off  from  another  may  make  their  pres- 
ence felt  in  the  consciousness  in  question ;  and,  in  this  case,  we 
have  very  good  reason  for  believing  that  they  are  not  uncon- 
scious ideas  at  all. 

To  make  my  list  of  possible  alternatives  complete,  perhaps  I 
should  suggest  that  the  German,  Germany,  and  Prussia  may  really 
have  made  their  appearance  in  Sir  William's  consciousness  without 
his  knowing  it.  That  is  to  say,  they  may  have  been  subconscious 
in  the  second  sense  —  they  may  have  been  dim  and  fleeting  expe- 
riences which  served  to  make  possible  a  transition  to  another  idea, 
but  which  failed  to  attract  the  attention  and  which  thus  escaped 
unnoticed.  One  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  old  psychology  was  its 
failure  to  recognize  how  gross  and  inadequate  an  instrument  direct 
introspection  is. 

As  to  the  arguments  drawn  from  the  minimum  visibile  and 
from  our  acquired  dexterities,  they  are  palpably  unsound.  I  can- 
not assume  that,  because  I  can  from  a  distance  see  a  great  expanse 
of  green  color,  I  may  conclude  that  every  separate  leaf  concerned 
in  the  total  effect  has  its  distinct  and  separate  influence  in  produc- 
ing a  "  mental  modification,"  an  influence  which  it  would  exercise 
in  the  absence  of  every  other  leaf.  In  assuming  such  an  exact 


500  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

quantitative  parallel  between  objective  stimulus  and  resultant 
sensation,  Sir  William  has  evidently  gone  far  beyond  what  is 
justified  by  our  actual  knowledge  of  the  facts  in  the  case. 

The  relations  of  the  human  body  to  those  things  that  act  upon 
it  are  by  no  means  so  simple  as  this.  A  large  dose  of  a  given 
drug  may  be  injurious  to  the  body  ;  a  small  dose  may  produce 
an  effect  of  a  wholly  different  kind.  A  given  quantity  of  food 
will  result  in  an  increase  of  weight ;  doubling  the  quantity  will 
not  necessarily  double  the  gain,  and  it  may  result  in  a  disorder 
that  will  actually  diminish  it.  Within  certain  limits  we  discern 
objects  more  clearly  when  the  light  under  which  they  are  seen 
is  made  to  increase  in  intensity,  but  it  is  obvious  that  this  relation 
between  intensity  of  illumination  and  the  clearness  with  which  we 
see  things  does  not  hold  indefinitely.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that 
the  external  stimulus  applied  to  one  of  the  organs  of  sense  must 
reach  a  certain  magnitude,  extensive  or  intensive,  before  there  is 
such  a  nervous  reaction  as  is  accompanied  by  any  sensation  what- 
ever. A  lesser  stimulus  than  this  may  have  its  parallel  in  the 
weight  in  the  scale  insufficient  to  cause  in  the  balance  any  motion 
at  all. 

By  the  minimum  visibile  Sir  William  appears  to  have  meant 
the  least  thing  directly  revealed  by  introspection  as  given  in  per- 
ception. It  is  by  no  means  self-evident  that  a  lesser  thing  than 
this  may  not  affect  consciousness,  may  not  be  subconsciously 
perceived  in  the  second  sense  of  the  word  "  subconscious."  If, 
however,  we  understand  by  the  minimum  visibile  the  least  visual 
stimulus  that  can  affect  consciousness  at  all, — it  would  be  ex- 
ceedingly difficult  to  prove  anything  a  minimum  visibile  in  this 
sense,  —  then  we  ought  to  prove,  and  not  assume,  if  we  wish  to 
be  Hamiltonians,  that  a  lesser  stimulus  than  this  has  an  effect  of 
any  sort  that  may  properly  be  called  mental. 

Hamilton's  explanation  of  the  fact  that  actions  performed  habit- 
ually tend  to  "drop  from  consciousness"  has  the  same  defect  as 
the  argument  just  criticised.  He  assumes,  and  does  not  prove, 
that  an  interval  of  time  too  short  to  be  represented  in  conscious 
mind  may  be  represented  in  unconscious  mind.  His  explanation, 
moreover,  overlooks  the  fact  that  even  actions  performed  slowly, 
if  they  be  performed  frequentty  enough,  may  come  to  be  per- 
formed unconsciously.  The  motions  of  a  man  in  a  brown  study 
are  not  necessarily  hurried. 


Subconscious  Mind  501 

The  man  who  seeks  to  interpret  the  significance  of  a  series 
of  actions  which  has  come  to  be  performed  "  unconsciously  "  has 
various  hypotheses  from  which  to  choose.  He  may,  in  a  par- 
ticular case,  be  inclined  to  believe  that  the  series  was  not  really 
absent  from  consciousness,  but  had  its  place  in  that  dim  region  of 
consciousness  which  secures  little  attention  and  is  apt  to  be  over- 
looked. On  the  other  hand,  he  may  have  reason  to  believe  that 
the  series  was  really  absent  from  consciousness,  —  the  normal  con- 
sciousness which  is  to  us  the  consciousness,  —  but  may  conclude, 
nevertheless,  that  it  was  represented  in  a  consciousness.  That  it 
is  possible  to  refer  more  than  one  consciousness  to  the  one  nervous 
system  we  have  seen.  If  the  reaction  to  a  particular  sense-stim- 
ulus has  been  very  rapid,  as  when  a  note  is  struck  by  the  finger 
in  response  to  the  glance  which  the  accomplished  piano-player 
casts  upon  the  sheet  before  him,  he  may  argue  that  the  incoming 
message  has  been  the  occasion  of  the  immediate  despatch  of  an 
outgoing  message  to  the  muscles  from  some  lower  centre  in  the 
brain,  and  that  the  cortex,  the  seat  of  the  normal  consciousness 
of  the  man,  has  not  been  concerned  in  the  result.  That  the 
disturbance  of  the  lower  centre  has  been  accompanied  by  con- 
sciousness it  is  not  absurd  for  him  to  believe.  That  the  lower 
centres  may  be  trained  to  perform,  when  functioning  indepen- 
dently, actions  which  they  could  not  have  performed  had  the 
cortex  not  originally  had  a  finger  in  the  matter,  the  physiologist 
does  not  find  incredible. 

Whether  such  actions  as  these  are  to  be  looked  upon  as  accom- 
panied by  consciousness  is,  of  course,  a  fair  question.  To  the 
hypothesis  that  certain  "  unconscious "  actions  are  evidence  of 
other-consciousness  one  may  prefer  the  doctrine  that  they  point 
to  the  existence  of  no  mental  facts  of  any  sort.  One  may  main- 
tain that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  mere  mechanism,  not  a 
mechanism  with  psychic  parallels.  This  doctrine  may  be  pushed 
to  an  extreme,  as  it  is  in  the  works  of  Dr.  Despine,1  who,  although 
well  acquainted  with  the  phenomena  of  hypnotism,  finds  it  pos- 
sible to  maintain  that  a  subject  capable  of  speaking,  of  answering 
questions  intelligently,  of  showing  preferences,  of  refusing  to 
obey  orders,  etc.,  is  a  bit  of  mechanism  wholly  without  con- 
sciousness while  doing  such  things  as  these.  It  is  possible  to  go 
but  one  step  farther  than  this,  and  that  is  to  deny  any  conscious- 
1  "iltude  scientifique  sur  le  Somnanibulisme,"  Paris,  1880. 


502  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

ness  to  one's  laboratory  assistant  and  to  the  members  of  one's 
own  family. 

But  if  it  is  absurd  to  den}'  the  presence  of  consciousness  in 
the  face  of  such  overwhelming  evidence,  it  does  not  follow  that 
we  may  assume  that  all  so-called  automatic  actions  indicate  the 
presence  of  consciousness  somewhere.  Whether  certain  of  them 
do  so  or  not  is  a  question  upon  which  one  may  well  prefer  to 
reserve  judgment.  The  evidence  for  other  minds  and  the  deter- 
mination of  their  nature  are,  as  we  have  seen,1  matters  touching 
which  it  is  well  to  judge  with  caution  and  to  speak  with  modesty. 

In  discussing  Sir  William  Hamilton's  arguments  I  have,  for 
convenience,  spoken  as  though  the  unconscious  mental  facts  for 
which  he  argues  were,  at  least,  something  conceivable.  But  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  we  know  no  mental  facts  directly 
save  conscious  mental  facts.  Our  argument  for  the  existence  of 
mental  facts  of  which  we  are  not  directly  conscious  —  for  ejects 
—  is  an  argument  from  analogy.  If  it  proves  the  existence  of 
anything,  it  proves  the  existence  of  conscious  mental  facts,  or,  as  I 
should  prefer  to  say,  of  consciousness.  How  one  should  undertake 
to  prove  the  existence  of  an  unconscious  mental  fact  I  cannot  con- 
ceive, nor,  for  that  matter,  how  one  should  make  clear  to  oneself 
what  one  means  by  the  expression. 

It  may  be  said,  this  inability  arises  out  of  the  assumption 
that  consciousness  is  nothing  but  a  name  for  the  mental  facts 
themselves.  Once  distinguish,  as  Hamilton  and  others  have  done, 
between  consciousness  and  the  facts  of  which  consciousness  takes 
cognizance,  and  it  is  not  impossible  to  realize  what  may  be  meant 
by  an  unconscious  mental  fact  ;  abstract  in  thought  the  conscious- 
ness from  an  ordinary  sensation,  and  what  is  left  is  an  uncon- 
scious sensation.  The  thing  seems  simple,  on  the  surface  ;  but  we 
should  not  overlook  the  fact  that  this  suggested  operation  has  no 
analogy  with  the  processes  of  abstraction  as  commonly  performed. 
When  one  has  abstracted  consciousness  from  a  sensation,  is  one 
conscious  of  the  sensation  ?  Manifestly  not  ;  it  disappears,  by 
hypothesis,  from  the  realm  of  the  known.  Then  how  can  one 
know  what  is  left  when  consciousness  has  been  abstracted  from 
a  sensation  ?  When  consciousness  is  abstracted,  nothing  is  left  ; 
or,  at  least,  nothing  appears  to  be  left,  and  the  assumption  that 
something  is  left  seems  to  be  no  better  than  a  gratuitous  assump- 

i  Chapter  XXVIII. 


Subconscious  Mind  503 

tion  of  one  knows  not  what.  But  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
pick  a  fresh  quarrel  here  with  the  man  who  is  resolved  to  regard 
consciousness  as  an  inner  light  or  a  supernormal  activity.  I 
leave  him  to  his  own  devices. 

It  may  seem  surprising  that,  in  discussing  the  subject  of 
unconscious  sensations,  I  have  not  turned  to  the  extensive 
psycho-physical  literature  through  which  the  student  of  psychol- 
ogy feels  it  his  duty  to  wade  at  some  point  in  his  course.  I  have 
not  done  so  because  the  gain,  for  the  purpose  in  hand,  would  have 
been  small.  Still,  it  seems  hardly  right  to  pass  over  the  whole 
thing  in  silence,  and  I  shall,  pour  acquit  de  conscience^  say  a  few 
words  touching  the  negative  sensations  which  have  received  so 
much  attention  in  psycho-physical  literature. 

Let  us  assume  that  it  is  possible  to  determine  the  least  phys- 
ical stimulus  that  is  capable  of  giving  rise  to  a  conscious  sensation 
of  a  given  class.  Let  us  further  assume  that  the  increments  of 
sensation  which  correspond  to  certain  definite  increments  in  the 
stimulus  can  be  determined  with  accuracy.  We  have  now  before 
us  a  series  of  sensations,  beginning  with  one  just  perceptible, 
and  we  have  a  series  of  stimuli  corresponding  to  the  sensations. 
The  quantity  of  sensation  increases  as  the  stimulus  increases,  and 
we  may  naturally  ask  ourselves,  What  is  the  law  which  expresses 
the  general  relation  between  stimulus  and  sensation  ?  Reasoning 
upon  such  a  basis  of  assumptions  as  is  above  indicated,  Fechner, 
the  father  of  psycho-physics,  concluded  that  the  sensations  vary  in 
the  same  proportion  as  the  logarithms  of  their  respective  stimuli. 

With  the  justice  of  his  assumptions  and  with  the  accuracy  of 
his  law,  Ave  need  not  here  concern  ourselves.  It  is  enough  to 
remark  that  Fechner  thought  he  had  found  some  law  which 
expressed  the  quantitative  relations  which  obtain  between  sen- 
sations and  their  appropriate  stimuli.  If  we  assume  this  law 
to  be  a  general  law,  we  ought,  by  its  aid,  to  be  able  to  determine 
by  calculation  the  particular  sensation  which  must  correspond  to 
a  particular  stimulus,  even  in  cases  where  direct  experience  of 
the  sensation  is  out  of  the  question.  Given  a  limited  number 
of  sensations  in  the  same  series,  and  given  the  stimuli  which 
correspond  to  these  respectively,  we  may  graphically  represent 
the  relations  which  obtain  between  them  all  by  treating  the 
sensations  as  points  upon  a  curve.  When  the  equation  of  a 
curve  is  once  known,  the  curve  can  be  produced  mathematically, 


504  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

for  it  is  possible  to  determine  what  ought  to  be  the  exact  location 
of  every  point  in  it.  And  as  the  points  in  the  curve  represent, 
in  the  present  case,  sensations,  it  is  apparent  that  we  may  deter- 
mine exactly  what  sensation  must  correspond  to  any  given 
stimulus  whatever. 

Now,  the  series  of  sensations  appears  to  begin  abruptly  in  a 
certain  sensation,  the  least  sensation  that  we  can  consciously 
perceive,  the  first  sensation  above  the  "threshold"  of  conscious- 
ness. The  stimulus  that  corresponds  to  this  sensation  has  a 
certain  magnitude.  Suppose  a  stimulus  of  a  lesser  magnitude 
than  this,  may  we  conclude  that  anything  in  the  world  of  sensa- 
tion corresponds  to  it  ?  Why  not  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  sensations 
vary  as  the  logarithms  of  their  respective  stimuli  ?  May  not  a 
curve  approach  a  given  line,  touch  it,  and  pass  below  it  ?  The 
points  in  the  curve  which  lie  above  the  line  in  question  may  be 
given  positive  values,  there  is  a  zero  point  where  the  line  is 
crossed,  and  the  points  in  the  curve  which  lie  below  the  line 
must  be  given  negative  values.  Every  point,  whether  positive  or 
negative,  has  its  position  determined  in  the  same  way  by  the 
equation  of  the  curve.  Why  may  one,  then,  not  speak  of  a  zero 
sensation  below  the  least  perceptible  sensation,  and  of  a  series  of 
negative  sensations  which  stretch  below  this  and  correspond  to  the 
diminishing  values  of  the  stimulus  all  the  way  to  zero  ?  Fechner 
has  a  good  deal  to  say  about  these  negative  sensations. 

But  what  does  he  mean  by  these  negative  sensations  which  he 
calls  unconscious,  and  which  he  supposes  to  correspond  to  stimuli 
too  weak  to  produce  a  conscious  sensation  ?  He  admits  that  the 
phrase  "  unconscious  sensations "  is,  taken  literally,  mere  non- 
sense, and  he  does  not  wish  us  to  take  it  literally.1  May  we 
assume  that  he  understands  negative  sensations  to  be  mere  sym- 
bols of  the  degree  of  physical  resistance  which  is  to  be  overcome 
before  a  sensation  can  appear  in  consciousness  at  all  ?  He  repels 
the  insinuation,  though  he  certainly  sometimes  speaks  as  though 
this  were  his  thought.  Will  he  have  us  suppose  that  negative 
sensations  are  actual  existences  of  some  sort  ?  This  seems  to  be 
intended  when  he  makes  the  suggestion  that  such  sensations  may 
have  their  place  in  the  consciousness  of  a  world-spirit  capable  of 
being  affected  by  weaker  stimuli  than  are  human  beings  —  an  odd 
conceit  which  would  make  the  curve  of  sensation  lie  partly  in  one 
1  "  In  Sachen  der  Psycho-physik,"  Leipzig,  1877,  s.  94. 


Subconscious  Mind  505 

consciousness  and  partly  in  another.  It  is  difficult  to  think,  as 
one  reads  him,  that  he  had  any  clear  idea  of  what  he  really  meant. 

Perhaps  it  does  not  matter  very  much  what  he  really  did  mean, 
for  the  argument  for  negative  sensations  is  so  poor  that  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  take  it  too  seriously.  It  is,  at  bottom,  the  mini- 
mum visibile  argument  of  Hamilton,  and  is  not  the  more  worthy 
of  respect  because  it  has  borrowed  a  mathematical  formula  to 
cover  its  nakedness.  Even  were  it  true  that,  within  certain 
limits,  sensations  varied  as  the  logarithms  of  their  respective 
stimuli,  it  would  be  the  height  of  absurdity  to  jump  to  the  con- 
clusion that  this  relation  must  hold  good  semper  et  ubique,  and 
that  there  are  no  limits  to  the  system.  When  one's  faith  in  a 
formula  goes  so  far  as  to  lead  one  to  piece  out  a  series  of  con- 
scious sensations  by  a  series  of  unconscious  sensations,  it  is  time 
to  begin  a  reexamination  of  one's  reasonings. 

I  shall  not  delay  longer  over  arguments  for  unconscious  mind. 
I  know  of  none,  whether  urged  by  Fechner  or  by  others,  that  are 
worthy  of  being  taken  seriously.  We  have  seen,  however,  that 
there  are  two  senses  of  the  word  "  subconscious  "  in  which  it  is 
not  absurd  to  talk  of  subconscious  mind.  Of  the  significance 
of  subconscious  mind  in  these  senses  I  wish  to  speak  briefly 
before  bringing  this  chapter  to  a  close. 

We  are  all  aware  of  the  fact  that  we  know  many  things  with- 
out being  able  to  say  just  how  we  know  them,  and  we  choose  to 
do  many  things  without  being  able  to  point  out  just  the  motives 
that  have  influenced  our  decision.  We  may  have  a  vague  feeling 
of  bodily  discomfort,  and  may  be  very  sure  that  we  are  not  at 
ease,  and  yet  we  may  be  unable  to  determine  to  what  elements  in 
consciousness  our  elusive  discontent  may  be  attributable.  After 
a  few  moments  of  conversation  with  a  person  whom  we  have  met 
for  the  first  time,  we  turn  away  with  the  impression  that  his 
character  is,  at  bottom,  a  hard  and  unsympathetic  one,  or  an 
insincere  one,  yet  we  may  be  quite  incapable  of  justifying  our 
impression  by  referring  it  to  any  single  clearly  discernible  facial 
expression  or  to  any  objectionable  sentence.  There  is  no  science 
of  physiognomy  worthy  of  the  name;  yet  no  one  can  deny 
that  an  observant  man  can  gain  from  the  expressions  of  the 
human  face  a  fair  notion  of  character.  Certain  marked  peculiari- 
ties can,  of  course,  be  definitely  pointed  out.  Laughter  does  not 
suggest  a  funereal  frame  of  mind ;  we  know  perfectly  well  what 


506  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

the  caricaturist  means  us  to  infer  when  he  turns  the  corners  of  a 
mouth  up  or  turns  them  down ;  but  our  information  as  to  what 
is  revealed  by  facial  expression  goes  much  beyond  this,  and  we 
may  confidently  infer  calm  strength  or  a  secret  sadness  where  we 
are  wholly  unable  to  indicate  any  definite  mark  which  is  made  the 
basis  of  our  judgment. 

There  is  no  department  of  our  mental  life  in  which  judgments  of 
this  sort  do  not  play  their  part.  We  are  apt  to  say,  in  such  cases, 
that  we  feel  that  this  or  that  is  true,  or  that  we  know  by  intuition 
that  it  is  true.  Such  judgments  may  be  said  to  have  their  roots 
in  the  subconscious,  and  the  immense  significance  of  the  subcon- 
scious in  the  life  of  man  ought  to  be  given  due  recognition.  But 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  to  recognize  the  existence  of  the 
subconscious  in  this  sense  is  nothing  else  than  to  recognize  that 
consciousness-contents  do  not  all  stand  out  with  equal  vividness, 
and  that  much  may  be  known  and  may  influence  Our  judgments 
without  on  that  account  being  clearly  and  analytically  known. 

Touching  the  subconscious  in  this  sense  of  the  word,  I  beg  the 
reader  to  bear  in  mind  two  things  :  — 

First,  let  him  remember  that  between  the  conscious  and  the 
subconscious  there  is  no  clear  line.  Experiences  of  the  one  class 
fade  gradually  into  those  of  the  other  ;  the  difference  is  one  of 
degree  and  not  one  of  kind.  Moreover,  there  is  no  reason  to 
regard  the  realm  of  the  subconscious  as  the  abode  of  a  mystery 
which  can  never  be  dispelled.  Regions  which  do  not  lie  open  to 
the  eye  of  direct  introspection  may,  nevertheless,  be  explored  and 
mapped  out  with  the  aid  of  approved  scientific  methods.  The 
psychologist  is  constantly  occupied  in  doing  work  of  this  kind,  and 
it  is  not  inconceivable  that  the  time  may  come  when  his  informa- 
tion touching  the  dimmest  and  vaguest  of  the  elements  which  enter 
into  our  mental  life  may  be  reasonably  clear  and  satisfactory. 

In  the  second  place,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  we  have  no 
warrant  for  assuming  that  "  intuitions "  are  infallible,  or  even 
that  they  are  of  necessity  a  safer  guide  than  the  deliverances  of 
conscious  reflection.  For  example,  most  of  the  persons  with 
whom  we  come  in  contact  have  little  interest  in  Ethics  as  a 
science,  but  they  have  very  definite  opinions  upon  the  subject  of 
what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  in  individual  cases.  If  we  ask 
why  an  action  is  right  or  how  it  is  known  that  an  action  is  right, 
we  receive  from  them  no  intelligible  answer.  They  feel  that  it 


Subconscious  Mind  507 

is  right,  and  that  is  sufficient.  Now,  I  have  no  desire  to  under- 
rate the  importance  of  the  unsystematic  and  sometimes  erratic 
ethical  training  to  which  we  are  all  subjected  from  the  cradle,  nor 
would  I  maintain  that  any  course  in  Ethics  could  take  its  place. 
But  it  is  just  to  point  out  that  the  ethical  "intuitions"  of  the 
individual  may  reflect  the  prejudices  of  an  age,  of  a  nation,  of  a 
community,  or  of  a  social  class,  and  may  seem  sadly  in  need  of 
revision  to  one  capable  of  a  \vider  vision. 

Science  is  not  infallible,  and  the  attempt  to  think  clearly  may 
result  in  one's  taking  the  wrong  path  ;  but  to  heap  obloquy  upon 
science  and  clear  thought  and  to  turn  by  preference  to  the  sub- 
conscious as  the  ground  of  one's  judgments,  is  to  close  deliberately 
the  windows  which  admit  the  light  of  day,  arid  to  prepare  for 
oneself  that  darkness  in  which  the  ghosts  of  superstition  may 
be  expected  to  appear. 

I  may  be  excused  for  uttering  a  somewhat  similar  note  of 
warning  touching  our  attitude  toward  the  subconscious  in  the 
sense  of  other-consciousness.  That  more  than  one  consciousness 
may  be  referred  to  the  one  organism  we  may  accept  as  fact. 
The  contents  of  such  consciousnesses  and  their  relations  to 
each  other  are  legitimate  matter  for  scientific  investigation. 
There  is  no  field  of  science,  however,  which  calls  for  more 
patience  and  more  caution  in  him  who  would  cultivate  it 
successfully.  This  is  a  soil  upon  which  every  superstition  has 
flourished  in  the  past,  and  it  appears  ever  ready  to  give  birth  to 
hasty  generalizations,  far-reaching  inferences,  and  bold  flights  of 
the  poetic  imagination.  To  do  good  work  in  this  field  one  needs 
to  have  in  one's  composition  a  grain  of  scepticism,  and  one  needs 
also  to  possess  a  nice  sense  of  what  constitutes  scientific  evidence. 
Unhappily,  it  appears  that  this  field  offers  irresistible  attractions 
to  the  man  who  revels  in  the  mystery  of  the  subconscious,  who 
thrills  in  the  presence  of  spiritualistic  mediums,  who  looks  for 
short  cuts  to  the  solution  of  great  problems,  who  loves  the  poetry 
of  science  rather  than  the  dry  facts  which  constitute  the  body  of 
exact  knowledge.  Of  the  subconscious  in  the  sense  under  dis- 
cussion we  have  so  little  knowledge  that  is  worthy  to  be  called 
scientific,  that  the  prudent  man  will  regard  with  no  other  feeling 
than  curiosity  the  airy  edifices  which  uncritical  minds  have 
optimistically  founded  upon  it  and  whose  mushroom  growth  may 
safely  be  accepted  as  a  mark  of  their  unsubstantial  character. 


CHAPTER   XXXI 
MENTAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE   CAUSAL  NEXUS 

IN  the  doctrine  of  mind  and  world  which  has  been  set  forth  in 
the  preceding  chapters,  mental  phenomena  have  not  been  placed 
in  the  one  series  of  causes  and  effects  with  the  occurrences  which 
belong  to  the  physical  world. 

In  common  life  we  use  the  words  "  cause  "  and  "  effect  "  loosely, 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  affect  a  rigorous  exactness 
which  is  not  called  for  by  the  exigencies  of  the  situation,  and 
which  savors  of  pedantry.  But  one  who  has  seen  the  force  of  the 
considerations  urged  by  the  parallelist,  and  has  come  to  appreci- 
ate the  distinction  between  the  subjective  order  of  experience  and 
the  objective,  cannot  be  inclined  to  regard  sensations  or  ideas  as 
the  effects  of  physical  causes  or  as  the  causes  of  physical  effects, 
when  the  words  "  cause  "  and  "  effect "  are  used  in  their  strict  and 
proper  significance.  If  the  physical  world  is  a  perfect  mechanism, 
there  is  no  physical  occurrence  which  cannot  theoretically  be 
completely  accounted  for  by  a  reference  to  physical  causes,  and 
there  is  none  whose  effect  can  be  other  than  a  physical  occur- 
rence. Cause  and  effect  are  seen  to  be  a  name  for  antecedent 
and  consequent  in  the  series  of  changes  that  constitute  the  life 
history  of  the  mechanism  of  nature.  In  this  series  of  changes 
mental  phenomena  have  no  place  ;  they  belong  to  a  different 
order — they  are  not  antecedent  or  consequent,  but  have  their  place 
on  a  parallel  line.  Their  abstraction  does  not  leave  the  order  of 
causes  and  effects  incomplete. 

Again.  Mental  phenomena  have  not  been  shown  to  belong  to 
a  single  orderly  world  of  their  own,  in  which  the  appearance  of  a 
sensation  or  of  an  idea  could  be  accounted  for  somewhat  as  the 
fall  of  a  raindrop  can  be  accounted  for  in  the  physical  world.  It 
is  true,  we  sometimes  point  to  the  laws  of  the  association  of  ideas  ; 
and  speak  as  though  the  idea  which  "  introduces  "  another  were  a 
cause  of  the  appearance  of  the  latter.  The  analogy,  however, 

508 


Mental  Phenomena  and  the  Causal  Nexus         509 

between  such  antecedence  and  succession  and  the  order  of 
physical  causes  and  effects  is  an  extremely  remote  one. 

In  the  mechanical  order  of  nature  it  is  inconceivable  that  a 
given  cause  should  produce  any  other  than  one  single  effect,  and 
the  precise  nature  of  this  effect  may  (theoretically)  be  calculated 
by  any  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  cause.  On  the  other  hand, 
any  sort  of  idea  may  suggest  any  other,  if  the  two  happen  to  be 
connected  —  a  sight  may  suggest  a  sound,  another  sight,  or  the 
idea  of  a  movement.  We  can  trace  no  fixed  proportion  between 
the  antecedent  idea  and  its  successor  ;  nothing  that  in  the  least 
corresponds  to  the  nice  adjustment  of  causes  and  effects  in  the 
external  world.  Moreover,  even  were  we  inclined  to  regard  such 
a  relation  of  ideas  as  a  causal  connection,  we  should  be  compelled 
to  admit  that  the  rise  of  a  sensation  could  not  be  accounted  for 
by  a  reference  to  any  antecedent  mental  fact.  Finally,  the  realm 
of  minds  appears  to  be  broken  up  into  a  great  number,  of  relatively 
independent  principalities,  which  transact  their  business  without 
much  reference  to  each  other.  An  idea  in  a  mind  may  suggest 
another  idea  in  the  same  mind,  but  the  chain  soon  comes  to  an 
end,  and  we  cannot  follow  it  through  a  series  of  minds  into  an 
indefinite  past.  But  it  is  conceivable  that  one  who  knew  enough 
should  trace  the  antecedents  of  the  falling  drop  along  the  series 
of  physical  causes  to  the  cosmic  mist  from  which  in  the  fulness 
of  time  our  universe  was  precipitated. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  a  man  of  genius  made  the  bold 
attempt  to  treat  mental  phenomena  after  the  fashion  of  physical 
phenomena.  Spinoza  accepted  a  physical  world  complete  in  itself 
and  wholly  cut  off  from  any  interference  from  the  world  of  mind. 
But  he  also  assumed  a  mental  world  equally  complete  in  itself, 
and  unaffected  by  any  of  the  changes  taking  place  in  the  world 
of  material  things.  He  conceived  all  nature  to  be  animated,  and 
held  that  each  corporeal  thing  has  corresponding  to  it  a  mental 
thing,  which  may  be  called  its  idea.  He  would  have  us  believe 
that  all  these  mental  things  or  ideas  are  interrelated  as  are  the 
physical  things  to  which  they  correspond ;  that  they  constitute  a 
system  of  essentially  the  same  character ;  and  that,  just  as  hap- 
penings in  the  material  world  are  completely  accounted  for  by 
a  reference  to  their  physical  causes,  so  we  may  account  completely 
for  all  happenings  in  the  world  of  ideas  by  a  reference  to  mental 
causes,  which  are  other  ideas.  This  is  a  parallelism  which  does 


510  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

not  content  itself  with  a  somewhat  parsimonious  distribution  of 
halos,  but  conjures  up  and  places  beside  the  material  world  a 
second  world  coextensive  with  it,  as  complex,  as  self-sufficing,  as 
well  able  to  get  along  entirely  by  itself.  The  boldness  of  the 
speculation  compels  our  admiration. 

Our  conviction,  however,  it  cannot  compel.  When  we  open 
our  eyes  and  ask  ourselves  what  are  actually  the  facts  in  the 
case,  we  realize  that  our  philosopher  has  given  free  rein  to  his 
imagination.  We  have  seen,  in  discussing  the  distribution  of 
minds,  that  our  evidence  for  the  existence  of  mind  gradually  fades 
out.  That  human  bodies  reveal  mind,  it  does  not  occur  to  us  to 
doubt  at  all.  That  certain  other  bodies,  widely  different  from 
human  bodies,  yet  bearing  some  analogy  to  them,  reveal  mind, 
we  think  possible  and  perhaps  probable.  But  we  must  admit 
that  we  have  no  evidence  that  consciousness  or  anything  like 
consciousness  accompanies  the  fall  of  a  raindrop,  the  rending 
of  a  rock  through  the  influence  of  frost,  the  chemical  changes 
which  reveal  themselves  to  us  under  the  form  of  combustion,  the 
electric  discharge  that  spreads  devastation  in  the  storm. 

The  geologist  informs  us  that  there  was  a  time  when  the 
occurrences  on  this  planet  were  of  no  other  character.  We  now 
find  it  a  little  world  in  which  one  of  the  most  striking  facts  is  the 
distribution  of  minds.  The  evolutionary  philosopher,  if  he  ven- 
ture to  touch  upon  the  matter  at  all,  seems  forced  to  conclude, 
with  Mr.  Spencer,  that,  at  some  point  in  the  world's  history,  con- 
sciousness has  become  "nascent."  And  this,  the  appearance  of  a 
new  sort  of  being,  has  been  followed  by  what  may  be  called  a 
whole  series  of  beginnings.  With  the  gradual  development  of 
organisms  and  the  increasing  complexity  of  nervous  structures, 
there  have  come  into  existence  new  classes  of  sensations,  colors, 
sounds,  tastes,  odors.  Such  as  these  did  not  exist  and  could  not 
exist  so  long  as  the  life  of  the  world  was  of  a  low  order. 

We  need  not,  however,  go  back  to  a  remote  and  little  known 
past  in  order  to  find  ourselves  confronted  with  this  problem  of 
beginnings.  Spinoza's  notion  that  all  the  mental  phenomena  that 
exist  form  one  directly  interrelated  system  is,  as  I  have  above  indi- 
cated, by  no  means  borne  out  by  the  facts.  If  the  coming  into 
existence  of  a  consciousness  at  some  distant  past  time  is  a  problem, 
the  coming  into  existence  of  a  new  consciousness  at  the  present 
moment  is  equally  a  problem.  I  cannot  say  that  consciousness 


511 

began  once  for  all  with  the  first  rudimentary  sensation  of  a 
creature  which  has  long  since  disappeared.  That  sensation  has 
not  existed  continuously  since,  passing  from  consciousness  to 
consciousness  and  rendering  it  unnecessary  to  assume  anywhere 
an  origination.  Nor  may  we  regard  that  sensation  as  related  to 
later  sensations  as  a  physical  cause  is  related  to  its  effect.  They 
cannot  be  derived  from  it  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the  word. 
If,  then,  it  is  worth  while  to  dwell  upon  the  coming  into  being  of 
consciousness  at  some  period  of  the  world's  history,  it  is  worth 
while  to  reflect  upon  the  coming  into  being  of  the  consciousnesses 
which  appear  to  be  introducing  themselves  upon  the  stage  all  about 
us  at  the  present  day. 

Moreover,  we  must  not  forget  that  a  consciousness  is  a  complex 
thing  and  does  not  come  into  being  in  an  instant.  It  is  composed 
of  phenomena  which  succeed  each  other  in  time,  and  it  is  born,  so 
to  speak,  bit  by  bit.  New  phenomena  appear  in  it  from  moment 
to  moment.  At  times  the  consciousness  seems  to  be  suppressed, 
that  is  to  say,  there  is,  as  in  sound  sleep,  a  time  which  we  may 
regard  as  unfilled  by  phenomena  of  any  sort ;  and  then  the  thread 
is  taken  up  again  with  the  appearance  of  new  phenomena.  If  we 
may  anywhere  ask  for  an  explanation  of  origins,  must  we  not  ask 
for  it  all  along  the  line  —  at  the  rise  of  every  consciousness,  at  the 
appearance  in  each  consciousness  of  every  new  phenomenon  what- 
ever ?  And  if  we  may  neither  account  for  mental  phenomena  as 
the  results  of  physical  causes,  nor  account  for  them  as  the  results 
of  mental  causes,  in  what  sort  of  a  world  are  we  ?  Are  we  not 
forced  to  reject  the  Lucretian  maxim  that  nothing  is  born  from 
nothing,  and  into  nothing  nothing  can  return?  The  psychologist, 
then,  seems  to  be  busied  with  existences  which  appear  and  dis- 
appear causelessly,  and  we  may  deride  him  for  wasting  his  time 
upon  that  which  cannot  be  the  object  of  a  science. 

The  notion  that  any  occurrence  whatever  must  be  left  at  loose 
ends  and  denied  a  place  in  the  orderly  system  of  nature  cannot 
but  seem  shocking  to  the  man  of  scientific  mind.  It  is  scarcely 
too  much  to  say  that  even  the  plain  man,  when  he  reflects  upon 
the  matter,  must  find  something  absurd  in  the  doctrine  that  men- 
tal phenomena  are  existences  of  so  irresponsible  a  nature  that  their 
appearances  and  disappearances  are  to  be  regarded  as  inexplicable. 
Common  experience  appears  to  testify  to  a  certain  orderliness  in 
the  world  of  mind,  as  well  as  in  the  world  of  matter.  The  nature 


512  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

of  the  mental  phenomena  that  will  make  their  appearance  when 
the  schoolmaster's  rod  has  been  applied  to  a  boy's  body  can  be 
predicted. 

The  simplest  and  the  most  natural  hypothesis  to  account  for 
such  facts  as  these  seems,  at  first  sight,  to  be  that  of  the  plain 
man,  who  can  see  no  objection  to  regarding  thoughts  and  things 
as  having  their  place  in  the  one  causal  nexus.  We  have  seen l 
that  so  eminent  a  scientist  as  Mr.  Huxley  can  accept  this  scheme 
with  some  slight  modification,  and  can  hold  that  consciousness  is 
related  to  the  mechanism  of  the  body  as  a  collateral  product  of  its 
working.  He  who  can  conceive  of  consciousness  in  this  way  does 
seem  to  have  found  a  place  for  consciousness  in  nature,  and  need 
not  regard  the  appearance  of  a  given  sensation  or  idea  at  a  given 
time  as  inexplicable.  Moreover,  he  need  not  be  disturbed  by  the 
fact  that  mental  phenomena  appear  sporadically,  and  that  the 
mental  world  as  a  whole  is,  so  to  speak,  a  thing  of  gaps  and 
patches.  He  may  believe  that  consciousness  is  produced  or 
destroyed  as  the  conditions  for  its  production  or  destruction  are 
forthcoming. 

Nevertheless,  the  hypothesis  seems  rather  a  crude  one  to  the 
man  who  realizes  the  gulf  that  lies  between  physical  phenomena 
and  mental.  The  depth  of  the  abyss  is  sometimes  recognized  even 
by  the  man  whose  eager  desire  to  fit  all  phenomena  whatever  into 
the  one  evolutionary  scheme  leads  him  to  close  his  eyes  to  it  at 
certain  critical  points  in  his  system.  Thus  Mr.  Spencer,  when  he 
is  treating  of  the  distinction  between  physical  phenomena  and 
mental  phenomena,  writes  as  follows  :  — 

"  Throughout  the  foregoing  chapters  nervous  phenomena  have 
been  formulated  in  terms  of  Matter  and  Motion.  If  from  time  to 
time  the  phrases  used  have  been  tacitly  referred  to  another  aspect 
of  nervous  phenomena,  the  tacit  references  have  formed  no  parts 
of  the  propositions  set  down ;  but  have  been  due  to  lack  of  fit 
words  —  words  free  from  unfit  associations.  As  already  said,  the 
nervous  system  can  be  known  only  as  a  structure  that  undergoes 
and  initiates  either  visible  changes,  or  changes  that  are  repre- 
sentable  in  terms  furnished  by  the  visible  world.  And  thus  far 
we  have  limited  ourselves  to  generalizing  the  phenomena  which  it 
thus  presents  to  us  objectively. 

"  Now,  however,  we  turn  to  a  totally  distinct  aspect  of  our 
1  Chapter  XVIII. 


Mental  Phenomena  and  the  Causal  Nexus          513 

subject.  There  lies  before  us  a  class  of  facts  absolutely  without 
any  perceptible  or  conceivable  community  of  nature  with  the  facts 
that  have  occupied  us.  The  truths  here  to  be  set  down  are  truths 
of  which  the  very  elements  are  unknown  to  physical  science.  Ob- 
jective observation  and  analysis  fail  us ;  and  subjective  observation 
and  analysis  must  supplement  them. 

"  In  other  words,  we  have  to  treat  of  nervous  phenomena  as 
phenomena  of  consciousness.  The  changes  which,  regarded  as 
modes  of  the  Non-Ego,  have  been  expressed  in  terms  of  motion, 
have  now,  regarded  as  modes  of  the  Ego,  to  be  expressed  in  terms 
of  feeling.  Having  contemplated  these  changes  on  their  outsides, 
we  have  to  contemplate  them  from  their  insides."1 

I  shall  not  here  comment  upon  Mr.  Spencer's  suggestion  that 
it  is  the  one  series  of  changes  that  is  to  be  expressed,  now  in 
terms  of  motion,  and  now  in  terms  of  feeling ;  nor  upon  his  use 
of  the  words  "inside"  and  "outside."  These  are  the  usual  con- 
fusions of  the  parallelist  who  has  not  yet  freed  himself  from  the 
trammels  of  materialistic  thinking.  I  content  myself  with  remark- 
ing that  in  the  above  extract  he  regards  mental  phenomena  as 
absolutely  without  any  perceptible  or  conceivable  community  of 
nature  with  physical  facts,  as  lying  wholly  outside  the  sphere 
of  physical  science.  They  cannot,  then,  be  related  to  physical 
facts  precisely  as  these  latter  are  related  to  each  other,  and  one 
may  well  question  whether  they  can  be  the  causes  or  effects  of 
motions  in  matter.  Mr.  Huxley's  explanation  of  the  rise  of  a 
sensation  seems,  hence,  to  be  at  least  a  dubious  one. 

But  does  it  not  remain  for  Mr.  Spencer  to  face  the  question  of 
the  coming  into  being  of  mental  phenomena?  He  recognizes  the 
fact  that  it  is  not  every  physical  change,  nor  even  every  nervous 
change,2  that  has  an  "  inside."  The  "  insides  "  of  physical  changes 
only  come  into  being  at  this  or  that  point  in  the  world's  history. 
How  account  for  such  a  beginning  to  be?  Must  it  not  be  ac- 
counted for,  if  the  continuity  of  the  world-process  is  to  be  kept 
unbroken?  Mr.  Spencer  accounts  for  it  by  quietly  obliterating 
the  distinction  which  he  has  drawn  :  — 

"  There  cannot  be  coordination  of  many  stimuli  without  some 
ganglion  through  which  they  are  all  brought  into  relation.  In 
the  process  of  bringing  them  into  relation,  this  ganglion  must  be 
subject  to  the  influence  of  each  —  must  undergo  many  changes. 

1  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  Part  I,  Chapter  VI,  §  41.  2  Ibid.,  §  43. 

2  L 


514  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

And  the  quick  succession  of  changes  in  a  ganglion,  implying  as  it 
does  perpetual  experiences  of  differences  and  likenesses,  consti- 
tutes the  raw  material  of  consciousness.  The  implication  is  that 
as  fast  as  Instinct  is  developed,  some  kind  of  consciousness 
becomes  nascent."1 

We  see  thus,  that,  although  there  is  absolutely  no  perceptible 
community  of  nature  between  physical  facts  and  mental  facts,  a 
succession  of  physical  changes,  if  rapid  enough,  may  constitute 
the  raw  material  of  consciousness.  No  wonder  Mr.  Spencer  finds 
himself  "passing  without  break  from  the  phenomena  of  bodily 
life  to  the  phenomena  of  mental  life."2 

Such  a  jump  from  the  physical  to  the  mental  Professor  Clifford 
cannot  make,  but  he  feels  no  less  strongly  than  Mr.  Spencer  the 
necessity  of  fitting  mental  phenomena  into  a  general  evolutionary 
scheme.  Having  observed  that  the  complexity  of  consciousness 
is  paralleled  by  complexity  of  action  in  the  brain,  and  having 
inferred  a  correspondence  extending  even  to  the  elements,  that  is 
to  say,  having  inferred  that  each  simple  feeling  corresponds  to 
a  special  comparatively  simple  change  of  nerve  matter,  he  develops 
his  doctrine  as  follows  : 3  — 

"  The  conclusion  that  elementary  feeling  coexists  with  ele- 
mentary brain-motion  in  the  same  way  as  consciousness  coexists 
with  complex  brain-motion  involves  more  important  consequences 
than  might  at  first  sight  appear.  We  have  regarded  conscious- 
ness as  a  complex  of  feelings,  and  explained  the  fact  that  the 
complex  is  conscious  as  depending  on  the  mode  of  complication. 
But  does  not  the  elementary  feeling  itself  imply  a  consciousness 
in  which  alone  it  can  exist,  and  of  which  it  is  a  modification? 
Can  a  feeling  exist  of  itself,  without  forming  part  of  a  conscious- 
ness? I  shall  say  no  to  the  first  question,  and  yes  to  the  second, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  these  answers  are  required  by  the  doctrine 
of  evolution.  For  if  that  doctrine  be  true,  we  shall  have  along 
the  line  of  the  human  pedigree  a  series  of  imperceptible  steps 
connecting  inorganic  matter  with  ourselves.  To  the  later  mem- 
bers of  that  series  we  must  undoubtedly  ascribe  consciousness, 
although  it  must,  of  course,  have  been  simpler  than  our  own. 
But  where  are  we  to  stop  ?  In  the  case  of  organisms  of  a  certain 

1  Op.  cit.,  Part  IV,  Chapter  V,  §  195.  2  Ibid,  Part  III,  Chapter  I,  §  131. 

3  "On  the  Nature  of  Things-in-themselves."  Lectures  and  Essays,  London, 
1879. 


Mental  Phenomena  and  the  Causal  Nexus          515 

complexity,  consciousness  is  inferred.  As  we  go  back  along  the 
line,  the  complexity  of  the  organism  and  of  its  nerve-action  in- 
sensibly diminishes ;  and  for  the  first  part  of  our  course  we  see 
reason  to  think  that  the  complexity  of  consciousness  insensibly 
diminishes  also.  But  if  we  make  a  jump,  say  to  the  tunicate 
mollusks,  we  see  no  reason  there  to  infer  the  existence  of  con- 
sciousness at  all.  Yet  not  only  is  it  impossible  to  point  out  a 
place  where  any  sudden  break  takes  place,  but  it  is  contrary  to  all 
the  natural  training  of  our  minds  to  suppose  a  breach  of  continuity 
so  great.  All  this  imagined  line  of  organisms  is  a  series  of  objects 
in  my  consciousness ;  they  form  an  insensible  gradation,  and  yet 
there  is  a  certain  unknown  point  at  which  I  am  at  liberty  to  infer 
facts  out  of  my  consciousness  corresponding  to  them !  There  is 
only  one  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  and  to  that  we  are  driven. 
Consciousness  is  a  complex  of  ejective  facts,  —  of  elementary  feel- 
ings, or  rather  of  those  remoter  elements  which  cannot  even  be 
felt,  but  of  which  the  simplest  feeling  is  built  up.  Such  ele- 
mentary ejective  facts  go  along  with  the  action  of  every  organism, 
however  simple ;  but  it  is  only  when  the  material  organism  has 
reached  a  certain  complexity  of  nervous  structure  (not  now  to  be 
specified)  that  the  complex  of  ejective  facts  reaches  that  mode 
of  complication  which  is  called  Consciousness.  But  as  the  line  of 
ascent  is  unbroken,  and  must  end  at  last  in  inorganic  matter,  we 
have  no  choice  but  to  admit  that  every  motion  of  matter  is  simul- 
taneous with  some  ejective  fact  or  event  which  might  be  part  of  a 
consciousness.  From  this  follow  two  important  corollaries. 

"1.  A  feeling  can  exist  by  itself,  without  forming  part  of  a 
consciousness.  It  does  not  depend  for  its  existence  on  the  con- 
sciousness of  which  it  may  form  a  part.  Hence  a  feeling  (or  an 
eject-element)  is  Ding-an-sich,  an  absolute,  whose  existence  is  not 
relative  to  anything  else.  Sentitur  is  all  that  can  be  said. 

"  2.  These  eject-elements,  which  correspond  to  motions  of 
matter,  are  connected  together  in  their  sequence  and  coexistence 
by  counterparts  of  the  physical  laws  of  matter.  For  otherwise  the 
correspondence  could  not  be  kept  up. 

"That  element  of  which,  as  we  have  seen,  even  the  simplest 
feeling  is  a  complex,  I  shall  call  Mind-stuff.  A  moving  molecule 
of  inorganic  matter  does  not  possess  mind  or  consciousness ;  but 
it  possesses  a  small  piece  of  mind-stuff.  When  molecules  are  so 
combined  together  as  to  form  the  film  on  the  under  side  of  a  jelly- 


516  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

fish,  the  elements  of  mind-stuff  which  go  along  with  them  are  so 
combined  as  to  form  the  faint  beginnings  of  Sentience.  When 
the  molecules  are  so  combined  as  to  form  the  brain  and  nervous 
system  of  a  vertebrate,  the  corresponding  elements  of  mind-stuff 
are  so  combined  as  to  form  some  kind  of  consciousness  ;  that  is  to 
say,  changes  in  the  complex  which  take  place  at  the  same  time 
get  so  linked  together  that  the  repetition  of  one  implies  the  repe- 
tition of  the  other.  When  matter  takes  the  complex  form  of  a 
living  human  brain,  the  corresponding  mind-stuff  takes  the  form 
of  a  human  consciousness,  having  intelligence  and  volition." 

This  is  the  famous  Mind-stuff  theory.  How  deeply  Clifford's 
thought  has  been  influenced  by  Spinoza  is  everywhere  manifest. 
The  theory  rests  upon  three  very  bold  assumptions  —  indeed,  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  it  consists  of  three  very  bold  assumptions. 

The  first  assumption  is  the  existence  of  mind-stuff.  The  only 
argument  we  have  for  the  existence  of  ejects  proves  that  they 
exist  somewhere  in  the  world,  i.e.  that  they  are  revealed  by 
certain  organisms.  Clifford  assumes  that  they  exist  everywhere. 
For  this  we  have  not  a  shred  of  evidence. 

The  second  assumption  is  that  mental  phenomena  are  so  in- 
terrelated that  there  obtain  in  the  realm  of  mind  laws  which 
are  the  counterpart  of  the  physical  laws  of  matter.  This  Spino- 
zistic  notion  is,  as  I  have  pointed  out  earlier  in  this  chapter,  flatly 
contradicted  by  what  little  we  know  of  minds. 

The  third  assumption  is  that  all  the  classes  of  sensations  and 
ideas  of  which  we  are  conscious,  colors,  tastes,  sounds,  etc.,  are 
composed  of  elements  which  are  not  of  these  classes  at  all,  but 
something  more  rudimentary,  something  that  "  cannot  even  be  felt." 

Before  the  publication  of  the  essay  from  which  I  have  quoted 
above,  Mr.  Spencer  had  printed  in  his  "Principles  of  Psychology" 
an  argument  to  prove  that  all  classes  of  sensations  and  emotions 
are  built  out  of  a  common  unit,  a  primordial  element  of  conscious- 
ness, which  he  identifies  with  a  "nervous  shock."1  Are  not 
musical  sounds  due  to  a  series  of  rapid  vibrations  each  of  which 
affects  the  organ  of  hearing  ?  Is  not  the  note  as  heard  seemingly 
continuous  ?  Must  not  the  seemingly  continuous  note  really  be 
composed  of  a  vast  number  of  distinct  consciousness-elements 
each  of  which  is  due  to  a  single  blow  upon  the  organ  of  sense  ? 
This  doctrine  of  Mr.  Spencer  has  been  much  criticised  by  the 
i  "Principles  of  Psychology,"  Part  II,  Chapter  I,  §  60. 


Mental  Phenomena  and  the  Causal  Nexus          517 

psychologist,  and  I  shall  do  no  more  than  remind  the  reader  that 
it  carries  us  back  at  once  to  the  minimum  visibile  hypothesis 
discussed  in  the  last  chapter.  To  discover  what  is  actually  in  a 
man's  consciousness  we  must  not  content  ourselves  with  counting 
the  number  of  vibrations  in  some  medium  outside  of  him.  To 
arrive  at  the  elements  of  which  any  complex  state  of  consciousness 
is  made  up,  there  is  but  one  method  of  procedure  —  psychological 
analysis  ;  and  psychological  analysis  furnishes  no  evidence  what- 
ever that  the  mental  phenomena  with  which  we  are  familiar  are 
made  up  of  any  such  material  as  has  been  suggested  either  by 
Mr.  Spencer  or  by  Professor  Clifford.  For  the  third  assumption 
there  is  no  more  justification  than  there  is  for  the  other  two. 

The  mind-stuff  theory  is,  then,  a  castle  in  the  air.  What  in- 
duced a  man  of  science  to  erect  so  imposing  a  structure  upon  so 
unsubstantial  a  foundation?  Clifford  tells  us  himself:  it  is  "con- 
trary to  all  the  natural  training  of  our  mind  "  to  suppose  a  breach 
of  continuity.  In  other  words,  it  is  repugnant  to  our  minds  to 
suppose  that  mental  phenomena  may  appear  upon  the  scene  with- 
out antecedents.  To  avoid  such  a  conclusion  we  may  make  all 
sorts  of  assumptions  for  which  we  can  furnish  no  warrant  in  ob- 
served fact. 

The  attitude  of  the  man  of  science,  as  exemplified  by  the 
writers  who  have  been  mentioned  above,  is  one  with  which  it  is 
not  hard  to  feel  sympathy.  The  man  of  science  has  learned  to 
regard  the  material  world  as  a  system  in  which  there  is  constant 
transformation,  but  nothing  that  may  be  regarded  as  creation. 
In  an  earlier  age,  this  attitude  toward  the  material  world  expressed 
itself  in  the  statement  that  through  all  the  changes  that  take  place 
in  the  world  the  quantity  of  matter  and  motion  remains  the  same. 
To-day  the  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  mass  and  the  conservation 
of  energy  has  taken  its  place,  and  better  formulates  the  conclu- 
sion to  which  physical  facts  seem  to  point.  It  recognizes  a  certain 
equivalence  among  physical  phenomena,  and  it  maintains  that  no 
change  whatever  can  take  place  in  the  system  of  physical  things 
which  is  not  preceded  by,  and  followed  by,  conditions  which  a 
knowledge  of  the  system  would  show  to  be  the  equivalent  of  the 
change  in  question.  In  other  words,  it  explains  every  change  by 
referring  it  to  its  adequate  cause,  which,  after  all,  means  only 
that  it  explains  every  change  by  showing  that  it  is  an  exemplifica- 
tion of  the  laws  of  the  system. 


518  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

Now  the  coming  into  being  of  a  group  of  mental  phenomena 
is  a  change  —  if  not  a  change  in  the  material  world,  still  a  change 
in  the  universe  as  a  whole.  Must  we  not  account  for  this  as  ex- 
perience has  shown  us  that  we  must  account  for  physical  phenom- 
ena ?  That  is  to  say,  must  we  not  follow  "  the  natural  training  of 
our  mind  "  ? 

The  impulse  which  is  characterized  as  the  natural  training  of 
our  minds  should,  I  suppose,  be  recognized  as  having  a  twofold 
root.  First,  there  is  the  common  experience  that  mental  phenom- 
ena do  not  seem  to  be  absolutely  lawless.  They  often  appear  and 
disappear  as  we  would  expect  them  to  under  the  circumstances. 
But  this  experience  does  not  carry  us  very  far,  for  we  have  not  a 
very  accurate  knowledge  of  mental  phenomena.  The  general  ex- 
pectation that  in  their  behavior  they  will  obey  some  law  or  laws 
is,  in  the  case  of  the  man  of  science,  greatly  reinforced  by  obser- 
vation that  there  is  a  sphere  in  which  the  reign  of  law  appears  to 
be  absolute.  In  the  physical  order  of  causes  and  effects  every 
phenomenon  seems  to  be  completely  accounted  for,  and  the  man 
familiar  with  this  order  has  an  ideal  which  he  is  naturally  inclined 
to  realize  everywhere. 

If  he  has  been  deeply  impressed,  as  was  Clifford,  by  the  con- 
trast of  the  subjective  and  the  objective  orders  in  experience,  he 
may  refer  mental  facts  to  some  independent  system  of  their  own. 
To  do  this  he  is  compelled  to  assume  the  existence  of  a  world  of 
ideas  patterned  after  the  world  of  things  —  a  prodigious  assump- 
tion. If  he  recognizes  that  there  is  no  real  ground  for  making 
this  assumption,  what  remains  for  him  save  the  assumption  that 
mental  facts  can  somehow  be  given  a  place  in  the  one  system 
with  physical  facts  ?  What  more  natural,  in  other  words,  than 
that  he  should  stretch  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy l 
and  make  it  cover  facts  mental  as  well  as  facts  physical  ?  He 
may  then  maintain  that  something  may  disappear  from  the  phys- 
ical world  and  its  equivalent  appear  in  the  world  of  mind. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that,  in  either  case,  it  is  the  ex- 
perience of  physical  facts  and  their  relations  that  furnishes  a  basis 
for  the  inferences  drawn  concerning  mental  facts.  Of  Clifford's 
doctrine  I  shall  say  no  more  ;  it  is  too  fanciful  to  be  taken  seriously 
by  one  who  has  weighed  the  evidence  we  have  for  the  existence 

1  In  the  pages  to  follow  it  will  be  seen  that  the  word  "  energy  "  is  used  in  a  very 
broad  sense. 


Mental  Phenomena  and  the  Causal  Nexus          519 

of  minds  and  the  information  we  have  touching  the  interrelations 
of  mental  phenomena.  But,  as  concerns  the  other  doctrine,  I 
shall  ask  :  first,  Is  it  a  conceivable  doctrine  ?  and,  second,  If  con- 
ceivable, is  it  a  reasonable  doctrine  for  us  to  adopt  ? 

It  has  been  held  that  the  transition  from  physical  to  mental 
phenomena  is  made  easier  when  we  make  energy,  which  is  defined 
in  terms  of  work,  the  fundamental  concept  from  which  is  derived 
such  concepts  as  matter  and  cause.  We  may  regard  all  changes 
as  transformations  of  energy  —  the  change  from  the  purely  physi- 
cal to  the  nervous,  and  from  the  nervous  (which  is  still  physical 
in  the  broad  sense  of  the  word)  to  the  psychical.  If  we  ask  how 
mind  and  matter  are  related,  we  seem  to  be  confronted  with  a 
serious  problem ;  but  when  we  remember  that  matter  is  but  a 
manifestation  of  energy,  and  that  mind  is  also  a  manifestation  of 
energy,  the  way  is  made  smooth  before  us.  The  various  forms  of 
energy  may  be  substituted  for  one  another.1 

But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  abstract  concepts  of 
every  description  gain  the  only  significance  which  they  have  from 
the  actual  individual  experiences  of  the  subjective  and  of  the  ob- 
jective order  upon  which  they  are  based.  The  concepts  of  energy, 
matter,  motion,  cause,  and  all  the  rest  are  as  empty  as  the  Democri- 
tean  void,  if  we  rob  them  of  all  reference  to  the  above-mentioned 
experiences  and  their  relations.  Nothing  is  created  by  a  mathe- 
matical formula;  something  may  be  summed  up  by  it,  i.e.  it  may 
symbolize  something.  It  is  the  same  with  the  general  notions  of 
which  we  make  use  in  describing  our  world ;  they  are  convenient 
symbols,  but  it  is  absurd  to  place  them  above  the  experiences  in 
which  they  find  their  justification  ;  and  to  be  sure  that  we  are 
warranted  in  using  them  we  must  always  come  back  to  those 
experiences  and  see  whether  they  furnish  a  basis  for  the  super- 
structure that  we  are  attempting  to  erect  upon  them. 

Moreover,  we  must  realize  that  there  is  a  danger  in  abstract 
expressions.  If  we  will  insist,  with  Fenimore  Cooper,  in  calling 
women  "  the  sex  "  and  water  "  the  element,"  we  may  forget  that 
some  women  are  unattractive  and  some  water  dirty.  And  if  we 
will  elect  to  call  physical  facts  and  mental  facts  different  mani- 
festations of  energy,  we  may  seem  to  ourselves  to  have  established 
a  bond  of  community  between  them,  and  to  have  facilitated  the 
passage  from  the  one  class  of  experiences  to  the  other.  Whether 
1  Compare  Ostwald,  "  Vorlesungen  liber  Naturphilosophie,"  Leipzig,  1902,  s.  396. 


520  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

there  really  is  such  a  bond,  and  what  may  be  its  nature,  we  cannot 
discover  by  a  mere  distribution  of  titles.  We  must  come  back 
to  the  individual  facts  and  see  how  they  stand  related. 

How,  then,  must  the  man  who  wishes  to  make  the  doctrine 
of  the  conservation  of  energy  cover  facts  mental  as  well  as  facts 
physical,  conceive  of  the  relation  of  the  objective  and  the  sub- 
jective orders  in  experience  ? 

Let  us  suppose  that,  when  he  speaks  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  in  the  physical  world,  he  means  merely  to  recognize  the 
equivalence  of  certain  physical  phenomena,  or  groups  of  physical 
phenomena,  mechanical,  chemical,  thermal,  electrical,  etc.,  and  to 
indicate  that,  among  all  the  changes  that  take  place,  there  is  no 
change  that  may  not  be  accounted  for  by  a  reference  to  this  sys- 
tem of  equivalents.  That  he  should  extend  his  doctrine  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  it  embrace  mental  facts  means,  (1)  that  he 
should  regard  the  whole  body  of  physical  facts  as  constituting, 
when  taken  alone,  an  imperfect  system  ;  and  (2)  that  he  should 
regard  the  lacks  of  the  system  as  compensated  by  mental  facts. 

Now  it  should  be  remarked  that  the  man  who  holds  to  the 
existence  of  such  a  system  of  equivalents  in  the  physical  world 
is  not  compelled  to  maintain  that  all  the  classes  of  phenomena 
that  he  is  dealing  with  are  reducible  to  the  one  class,  and  that 
they  are  measurable  in  terms  of  the  same  unit.  That  they  may 
be  built  into  a  system  it  is  merely  necessary  that  the  individual 
phenomena  be  identifiable,  i.e.  that  they  be  in  each  case  distin- 
guishable from  other  phenomena  of  the  same  class  and  from 
phenomena  of  other  classes.  If  they  be  thus  identifiable,  and  if 
they  be  observed  to  stand  in  fixed  relations  to  each  other,  we 
have  a  system.  The  recognition  of  this  truth  ought  to  set  aside 
an  oft-repeated  objection  to  making  mental  phenomena  of  any 
sort  the  equivalent  of  physical  phenomena.  It  is  constantly 
argued  that  among  physical  phenomena  we  may  detect  a  quan- 
titative equivalence,  but  that  the  differences  in  mental  phenomena 
are  qualitative  and  not  quantitative.  It  should  be  observed,  how- 
ever, that,  even  if  this  were  strictly  true,  it  could  have  no  bear- 
ing upon  the  point  under  discussion.  Mental  phenomena  are 
distinguishable  from  each  other,  they  are  identifiable  ;  and  if 
it  can  be  proved  that,  when  a  particular  sensation  comes  into 
existence,  there  is  a  break  of  a  particular  sort  in  the  physical 
order,  a  man  may,  if  he  chooses,  call  the  sensation  the  equivalent 


Mental  Phenomena  and  the  Causal  Nexus         521 

of  what  has  been  found  lacking  in  the  physical  world.  He  is 
using  the  word  as  he  uses  it  when  he  speaks  of  the  mechanical 
equivalent  of  heat  or  of  chemical  action. 

Let  us  suppose,  again,  that  the  man  who  is  interested  in  mak- 
ing the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy  cover  mental  facts 
does  not  stop  short  at  chemical,  electrical,  thermal,  and  similar 
phenomena,  but  believes  that  he  is  everywhere  in  the  presence  of 
a  mechanism  which  is  merely  veiled  by  such  phenomena.  His 
physical  world  is  a  world  of  matter  in  motion,  or,  as  the  student 
of  mechanics  would  express  it,  a  world  which  may  be  described 
in  terms  of  mass,  length,  and  time.  He,  too,  has  his  system  of 
equivalents,  and  it  is  based  upon  observation,  for  the  science  of 
mechanics  is  not  the  product  of  the  poetic  imagination,  and  has 
not  been  supernaturally  revealed  to  man.  It  has  been  built  up 
slowly  by  an  observation  of  the  changes  in  the  material  world  and 
a  reflection  upon  their  order. 

How  must  such  a  man  conceive  of  the  world  and  the  mind 
when  he  has  stretched  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy  ? 
He  must  hold  that  the  physical  world  is  a  mechanism,  but  a  de- 
fective one,  and  that  its  defects  are  compensated  by  mental  phe- 
nomena. In  other  words,  he  must  hold  that  sometimes  a  motion 
may  disappear  from  the  physical  world,  or  the  mass  of  a  body 
may  be  slightly  diminished,  and  that  the  change  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  by  a  reference  to  mechanical  laws  ;  and  he  must 
maintain  that,  on  occasion  of  a  particular  disappearance  of  this 
character,  there  comes  into  being  a  particular  mental  phenomenon 
or  group  of  mental  phenomena.  He  is  not  compelled  to  say  that 
matter  or  motion  have  "  turned  into  "  mind.  Such  an  expression 
gives  his  opponent  too  good  an  opportunity  to  scoff.  He  need 
only  say  that  the  sensation  or  other  mental  fact  is  the  "  equiva- 
lent "  of  something  that  was  not  mental. 

Is  this  doctrine  in  either  of  the  forms  just  described  a  conceiv- 
able one  ?  It  is  conceivable,  and  equally  conceivable  in  both  forms. 
So  much  for  the  first  of  the  two  questions  which  I  raised  a  few 
pages  back.  And  now  for  the  second  :  If  conceivable,  is  it  a 
reasonable  doctrine  for  us  to  adopt? 

Perhaps  I  shall  be  taxed  with  inconsistency  for  passing  on  so 
quickly  to  the  second  question,  in  view  of  the  answer  which  I 
have  given  to  the  first.  Is  not  the  doctrine  under  discussion  a 
form  of  interactionism  —  indeed,  just  the  form  of  interactionism 


522  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

discussed  at  the  close  of  Chapter  XVII  ?  Was  it  not  there  pointed 
out  that  the  interactionist  busies  himself  with  the  attempt  to  patch 
up  a  defective  machine  with  immaterial  cogs  and  couplings,  which 
cannot  be  inserted  at  the  break,  because  they  cannot  be  given  a 
place  anywhere  in  the  material  world  ?  Did  it  not  seem  to  follow 
that  the  doctrine  is  in  its  nature  absurd  and  inconceivable  ? 

It  is  necessary  to  draw  a  distinction.  The  attempt  to  patch  up 
a  defective  machine  with  what  is  immaterial  is,  indeed,  absurd. 
Such  a  patch  cannot  be  put  on,  such  a  joint  cannot  be  inserted,  in 
any  sense  of  the  words  that  has  a  significance.  The  machine 
remains  defective  ;  there  is  an  unfilled  gap.  But  it  is  possible 
for  one  to  hold  that  the  external  world  is  a  defective  machine,  and 
that  when  one  discovers  a  break  in  it,  one  may  infer  the  existence 
of  mental  phenomena,  which  form  no  part  of  the  machine,  which 
do  not  fill  the  gap,  which  are  not  anywhere  in  the  external  world, 
which  belong  to  a  different  order. 

Whether  any  man  who  realizes  clearly  how  absurd  it  is  to  at- 
tempt to  patch  his  machine  with  such  phenomena  will  break  his 
machine  here  and  there,  that  he  may  have  the  pleasure  of  thus 
patching  it,  is  a  different  question.  If  we  may  judge  by  what  the 
interactionists  have  actually  written,  we  must  conclude  that  none 
of  them  would  have  insisted  upon  regarding  the  machine  as 
defective  were  it  not  for  a  tincture  of  materialistic  thought  — 
for  the  secret  conviction  that  such  patches  may  be  put  on.  In 
the  chapter  to  which  I  have  above  alluded  I  was  concerned  with 
showing  that  the  interactionist  has  always  been  a  veiled  materialist. 

That  this  is  true,  there  can  be  little  doubt.  Descartes  drops 
his  little  soul  into  the  pineal  gland,  where  it  serves  the  purpose 
of  a  cog-wheel  that  transmits  motion.  Huxley,  who  may  be  called 
half  an  interactionist,  relates  the  soul  to  the  body  as  the  bell  of 
a  clock  is  related  to  the  works,  or  as  the  steam  whistle  is  related 
to  the  locomotive  engine.  McCosh  conceives  that  mind  and  body 
came  together  at  some  point  or  surface  within  the  human  body. 
James  speaks  of  feelings  and  motions  as  stewing  together  in  the 
same  vat.  One  and  all  believe  that  it  is  possible  to  patch  the 
machine,  and  it  is  this  belief  that  makes  interactiouism  appear  to 
them  a  desirable  doctrine.  The  word  "  interaction  "  does  not  seem 
to  be  an  empty  sound  ;  it  calls  up  the  picture  of  billiard-balls 
hitting  each  other,  and  of  predictable  resulting  motions. 

And  what  animus    has    inspired    those  who    have    scoffed    at 


523 

interactionism  ?  Nothing  else  than  the  recognition  that  physical 
facts  and  mental  facts  belong  to  different  orders,  and  the  con- 
sciousness that  it  is  absurd  to  try  to  arrange  them  in  the  one 
order.  Spinoza  could  not  consent  to  make  one  system  out  of 
things  so  disparate  as  thought  and  extension.  "  It  will,"  wrote 
Clifford,  touching  the  doctrine  of  the  interactionist,  "be  found 
excellent  practice  in  the  mental  operations  required  by  this  doc- 
trine, to  imagine  a  train,  the  fore  part  of  which  is  an  engine 
and  three  carriages  linked  with  iron  couplings,  and  the  hind  part 
three  other  carriages  linked  with  iron  couplings ;  the  bond  between 
the  two  parts  being  made  up  out  of  the  sentiments  of  amity  sub- 
sisting between  the  stoker  and  the  guard."  "Try  to  imagine," 
exclaims  another  writer,  "  the  idea  of  a  beefsteak  binding  two 
molecules  together."1  The  chasm  between  the  two  classes  of 
phenomena  has  not  seemed  less  profound  to  those  who,  never- 
theless, do  not  find  it  impassable  when  they  are  moved  by  other 
considerations.  I  have  quoted  from  Mr.  Spencer  above.  Says 
Professor  James,  "  If  evolution  is  to  work  smoothly,  conscious- 
ness in  some  shape  must  have  been  present  at  the  very  origin  of 
things,"  2  which  means  that  evolution  must  keep  to  the  order  with 
which  it  started,  for  it  cannot  pass  over  the  gulf. 

These  facts  are  extremely  significant.  They  indicate  plainly 
that  the  impulse  to  place  mental  phenomena  in  the  one  causal 
nexus  with  physical  phenomena  has  its  root  in  an  obliteration 
of  the  distinction  between  the  two.  When  a  man  fails  to  realize 
the  distinction  between  the  phenomena  of  the  two  orders,  and 
slips  into  a  materialization  of  mental  facts,  he  is  ready  to  become 
an  interactionist.  He  does  not  become  an  interactionist  because 
the  position  is  a  conceivable  one,  but  because  it  seems  to  him  a 
reasonable  one.  He  has  made  mental  facts  more  or  less  incon- 
sistently physical,  and  he  can  find  no  good  reason  for  excluding 
them  from  the  physical  order. 

One  may  hold,  then,  that  it  is  conceivable  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  conservation  of  energy  be  extended  in  the  sense  above  in- 
dicated ;  and  one  may  maintain,  nevertheless,  that  such  an  exten- 
sion of  it  is  purely  gratuitous,  and,  hence,  unworthy  of  serious 
consideration.  That  it  is  thus  gratuitous  and  unjustifiable  I  shall 
try  to  show  in  what  follows. 

1  Mercier,  "The  Nervous  System  and  the  Mind,"  London,  1888,  p.  9. 

2  "  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  149. 


524  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  man  who  proposes  to  stretch  the 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy  must  not  give  to  his  position 
a  spurious  air  of  respectability  by  a  mere  trick  of  phrase.  He  must 
not  obliterate  the  distinction  of  the  two  orders  of  experience  by 
arguing  that,  as  two  forms  of  "energy,"  material  facts  and  mental 
facts  may  naturally  be  built  into  the  one  system.  This  is  beg- 
ging the  question  at  the  outset.  Upon  what,  then,  shall  he  ground 
his  position  ?  He  can  furnish  but  the  one  argument.  There  is  a 
physical  system  of  things,  and  there  obtains  in  it  an  order  which 
we  call  that  of  cause  and  effect.  No  physical  phenomenon  appears 
to  be  without  its  cause.  But  there  exist  also  mental  phenomena, 
and  these  do  not  seem  to  belong  to  an  independent  system  of  their 
own.  Are  they  to  be  left  out  in  the  cold,  causeless,  unaccounted 
for,  unexplained?  Perish  the  thought!  let  us  break  the  physical 
system  in  various  places  and  insert  them  at  the  gaps  thus  made. 

Now  why  is  it  assumed  that  it  is  easier  to  connect  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  subjective  order  with  the  physical  system  of  things 
when  the  latter  is  assumed  to  be  broken  here  and  there  ?  Surely 
it  must  be  evident  that  he  who  insists  upon  breaking  the  system 
is  laboring  under  the  delusion  that  a  place  must  be  made  for 
mental  facts  as  a  place  may  be  made  for  what  is  material  —  they 
must  be  inserted  someivhere.  When  we  realize  that  such  an  inser- 
tion is  nonsense,  we  see  clearly  that  the  assumption  that  the 
physical  system  is  broken  is  really  gratuitous.  We  have  no 
direct  evidence  that  it  is  broken.  We  break  it  ourselves  to 
make  room  for  a  new  link  in  the  chain.  The  new  link  cannot 
conceivably  be  inserted.  Then  what  possible  purpose  can  it  serve 
to  break  the  chain  ? 

The  truth  is  that  an  insistence  upon  the  assumption  that  the 
physical  order  of  things  is  not  a  complete  and  independent  system 
invariably  rests  upon  an  unwillingness  to  regard  the  distinction 
between  the  subjective  order  and  the  objective  order  as  a  unique 
fact.  We  have  seen  J  that  even  the  parallelist  is  apt  to  fall  back 
upon  a  material  analogy,  and  to  take  it  with  literal  seriousness, 
when  he  proposes  to  explain  how  it  is  that  mental  phenomena 
and  physical  are  concomitant.  To  explain  such  a  fact  means 
to  assimilate  it  to  other  facts,  to  show  that  it  is  not  unique,  to 
materialize  it.  And  he  who  will  extend  the  doctrine  of  the  conser- 
vation of  energy  to  mental  facts  explains  the  coming  into  being  of 

1  Chapter  XX. 


525 

mental  phenomena  by  pointing  out  that  they  are  not  fundamentally 
different  from  physical  phenomena,  that  the  distinction  between 
the  subjective  and  the  objective  orders  of  experience  may  be  set 
aside,  and  that  all  phenomena  may  be  treated  as  though  they 
belonged  to  the  one  order — which  they  do  not. 

Shall  we,  then,  admit  that  the  coming  into  being  of  mental 
phenomena  is  causeless  ?  Certainly ;  but  let  us  not  be  misled 
by  an  ambiguity.  By  the  use  of  such  an  expression  we  should 
only  mean  that  mental  phenomena  have  no  place  in  the  physical 
system  of  things,  and  that  they  do  not  hold  in  a  system  of  their 
own  a  place  analogous  to  that  held  in  the  physical  system  by 
physical  phenomena.  We  need  not  mean  that  mental  phenomena 
are  left  at  loose  ends,  unaccounted  for,  unexplained  in  any  intelli- 
gible sense  of  the  word.  If  the  doctrine  which  I  have  urged  in 
this  volume  be  the  true  one,  there  is  no  mental  phenomenon  which 
may  not  be  accounted  for  in  the  only  way  in  which  we  have  a  right 
to  account  for  mental  phenomena. 

It  may  be  given  its  place  and  time  of  existence  in  the  sense 
discussed  in  Chapter  XXIV ;  it  may  be  ordered  by  a  reference 
to  the  physical  system,  if  it  cannot  form  part  of  it.  To  ask  for 
an  explanation  of  the  fact  that  there  are  mental  phenomena  at  all, 
is  to  ask  a  foolish  question.  To  ask  why  this  or  that  mental 
phenomenon  comes  into  existence  at  a  given  moment  may  be  a 
sensible  question,  but  it  is  only  a  sensible  question  when  the  man 
who  proposes  it  looks  for  his  answer  in  the  field  of  our  general 
knowledge  of  mental  phenomena  and  their  relations  to  the  physi- 
cal world.  The  answer  must  consist  in  showing  that  experience 
has  revealed  that  this  is  the  particular  case  of  concomitance  that 
we  have  reason  to  expect  under  the  circumstances. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy 
has  really  nothing  to  do  with  mental  phenomena.  What  shall  we 
say  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  applied  to  mind?  Evidently 
we  may  not  hold  that  mind  is  evolved  from  matter  as  a  higher 
organism  is  evolved  from  a  lower.  We  have  seen  that  we  must 
not  place  mind  in  the  one  chain  of  causes  and  effects  with  things 
physical.  It  is  this  truth  that  is  emphasized  in  the  statement 
that,  "  if  evolution  is  to  work  smoothly,  consciousness  in  some 
shape  must  have  been  present  at  the  very  origin  of  things."  But 
is  there  any  hope  of  making  evolution  work  smoothly  if  we  refuse 
to  admit  into  our  scheme  any  save  mental  phenomena  ?  May  we 


526  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

fix  our  attention  upon  mental  phenomena  alone  and  still  speak 
of  an  evolution  of  mind?  We  can  do  this  only  if  we  will  follow 
Spinoza  in  the  assumption  of  a  complete  system  of  mental  phe- 
nomena analogous  to  the  system  of  physical  phenomena  which  we 
call  the  external  world.  The  existence  of  such  a  system  is,  how- 
ever, as  I  have  said  above,  flatly  contradicted  by  what  we  know 
of  minds. 

Must  we,  then,  abandon  the  convenient  expression  "mental 
evolution "  ?  Not  at  all.  We  must  understand  it  and  avoid 
being  misled  by  it.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  use 
the  phrase  to  mark  the  fact  that  minds  increasingly  complex  have 
been  revealed  by  the  organisms  which  have  successively  made 
their  appearance  in  the  course  of  the  physical  evolution  of  things  ; 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not,  upon  a  knowledge  of 
what  has  been,  base  a  reasonable  expectation  of  what  will  be  in  the 
time  that  is  to  come. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
MECHANISM  AND  TELEOLOGY 

To  the  doctrine  set  forth  in  the  preceding  chapter  many  per- 
sons will  be  prompt  to  urge  objections.  "  What !  "  I  hear  them 
exclaim,  "  are  we  to  deny  to  mental  phenomena  a  place  in  the  one 
causal  nexus  with  material  phenomena  ?  Then  let  us  admit  at 
once  that  no  mind  can  act  upon  matter  and  bring  about  changes 
in  it,  and  let  us  also  accept  the  unpalatable  corollary  that  no  mind 
can  act  upon  another  mind.  Let  us  write  the  mind  down  an  epi- 
phenomenon,  a  shadow,  an  otiose  thing,  seeing  all  its  own  mis- 
chance, but  unable  to  lift  a  finger  to  determine  is  own  fate. 
Let  us  call  man  a  physical  automaton  with  parallel  psychical 
states,  and  let  us  be  penetrated  with  the  conviction  that  he  walks 
in  a  vain  show.  Perish  all  respect  for  that  passive  halo,  that 
thing  of  functions  merely  decorative,  the  human  mind,  of  which 
men  have  spoken  in  the  past  with  such  misplaced  respect." 

I  must  begin  my  answer  to  all  such  objections  with  the 
remark  that,  if  the  doctrine  set  forth  in  the  preceding  chapter 
really  did  imply  the  repudiation  of  all  those  experiences  com- 
monly described  as  instances  of  the  action  of  mind  upon  matter 
and  of  mind  upon  mind,  that  doctrine  would  undoubtedly  have 
to  be  abandoned.  It  is  matter  of  common  experience  that  we 
desire,  will,  and  attain  ends.  The  architect  conceives  a  plan, 
and  puts  it  on  paper;  the  mason  and  the  carpenter  set  matter  in 
motion,  and  build  a  house  ;  we  see  the  house,  we  are  pleased  with 
it,  and  we  buy  it.  The  architect  certainly  framed  his  plan  with 
an  end  in  view  ;  the  artisans  did  not  labor  without  a  purpose  ; 
we  take  the  house  that  we  may  live  in  it. 

In  answer  to  the  question  :  Why  did  builder  build,  and 
buyer  buy?  we  reply  unhesitatingly:  The  one  worked  to  get  his 
wage,  and  the  other  paid  over  his  money  to  have  a  home  of  his 
own.  Our  answer  takes  no  account  of  the  efficient  causes  of  the 
actions  in  question  ;  it  concerns  itself  with  the  indication  of  ends, 

527 


528  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

and  it  contents  the  questioner,  who  regards  human  actions  as 
satisfactorily  explained  when  he  is  able  to  look  upon  them  as 
means  to  the  attainment  of  given  ends. 

He  is  little  interested  in  the  chain  of  physical  causes  and  effects 
as  such.  Those  links  which  lie  in  the  human  brain  are  unknown 
to  him,  and  even  were  he  much  better  informed  than  he  is,  it  is 
inconceivable  that  this  chain  should  in  itself  absorb  his  attention. 
His  world  is  not  merely  a  world  of  matter  ;  it  is  also  a  world  of 
mind,  and  he  is  intensely  interested  in  thoughts,  feelings,  the 
satisfaction  of  impulses.  External  things  gain  for  him  a  peculiar 
value  and  significance  when  they  are  found  to  be  related  in 
certain  ways  to  things  mental.  He  shows  his  good  sense  in 
thinking  of  and  speaking  of  his  world  in  such  a  way  as  to  em- 
phasize those  relations  among  his  experiences  which  seem  to  him 
to  be  of  the  highest  importance.  He  does  so  unconsciously  and 
instinctively,  and  is  apt  to  forget  that  it  is  possible  to  regard 
things  from  another  point  of  view  as  well. 

I  have  said  that  it  is  a  matter  of  common  experience  that  men 
form  plans  and  attain  ends.  He  who  utterly  repudiates  this 
common  experience,  and  denies  that  men  form  plans  and  attain 
ends,  will  justly  be  regarded  by  his  neighbors  as  little  better  than 
a  fool.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  is  one  thing  to 
repudiate  common  experience,  and  quite  another  to  seek  to 
arrive  at  a  clearer  comprehension  of  what  it  signifies,  by  the  aid 
of  a  careful  analysis. 

For  example,  we  are  told  that  our  neighbor  arose  at  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  because  the  train  was  to  leave  at  six  ; 
that  he  took  his  luncheon  with  him,  because  he  would  be  unable 
to  procure  anything  to  eat  on  the  journey  ;  that  he  left  directions 
with  the  servants,  because  the  plumber  would  put  in  an  appear- 
ance before  his  return.  We  understand  quite  well  what  we  are 
meant  to  understand  by  such  statements,  and  we  know  that  they 
serve  to  express  truth.  If  an  officious  bystander  insists  that 
they  cannot  be  true,  on  the  ground  that  an  occurrence  not  yet 
existent  cannot  be  the  cause  of  a  present  occurrence,  or  on  the 
ground  that  the  mental  cannot  interact  with  the  physical,  we 
decide  that  his  reading  has  been  too  much  for  his  good  sense. 

The  statements  express  truth  ;  it  is  silly  to  deny  them,  and  it 
is  silly  to  block  the  wheels  of  human  intercourse  by  trying  to 
express  the  same  truth  in  some  strange  and  unaccustomed  way. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  529 

One  will  only  be  misunderstood  for  one's  pains,  and  in  all  proba- 
bility one  will  deceive  oneself  as  well  as  others.  Let  the  common 
expressions  stand.  They  have  long  served  their  purpose,  and  our 
emotional  as  well  as  our  intellectual  adjustments  to  them  are  what 
they  ought  to  be. 

But  this  does  not  mean  that  the  thinker  ought  not  to  strive  to 
make  very  clear  to  himself  the  exact  significance  of  such  words  as 
"purpose  "  and  "  end."  If  there  is  danger  of  falling  into  misappre- 
hensions, if  words  appear  to  be  used  in  more  than  one  sense,  if  the 
truth  that  is  conveyed  by  such  expressions  as  those  commented 
upon  above  is  found  to  be  a  vaguely  apprehended  truth,  it  is  surely 
desirable  to  subject  the  whole  matter  to  careful  criticism.  The 
plain  man  undoubtedly  has  experiences  in  which  the  external 
world  is  presented  to  him  ;  he  knows  more  or  less  vaguely  what 
he  means  by  material  things.  When  the  metaphysician  endeavors 
to  give  a  more  exact  account  of  what  is  meant  by  the  external 
world,  he  does  not  repudiate  these  experiences,  and  declare  the 
plain  man's  notions  of  the  external  world  to  be  wholly  untrust- 
worthy. He  recognizes  the  fact  that  it  is  just  these  experiences 
which  must  furnish  the  starting-point  for  his  own  investigations, 
and  he  sees  that  it  is  his  duty  not  to  deny,  but  to  comprehend.  It 
is  within  his  province  to  point  out  definitely  what  we  mean  by  space 
and  time  ;  it  is  not  within  his  province  to  call  in  question  the 
assertion  of  a  competent  astronomer  that  a  given  star  crossed  the 
meridian  at  a  given  moment.  In  the  same  way,  he  must  accept 
the  world  of  purposes  and  ends  revealed  in  common  experience, 
but  he  must  realize  that  such  an  acceptance  does  not  absolve  him 
from  the  duty  of  striving  to  comprehend  the  significance  of  what 
he  thus  accepts,  and  of  assigning  to  purposes  and  ends  their  rea- 
sonable place  in  the  world-order  as  a  whole. 

That  it  is  not  enough  to  dismiss  the  subject  with  an  appeal  to 
common  experience  must  be  evident  to  any  one  who  has  the  least 
acquaintance  with  the  history  of  speculative  thought.  How  one 
is  to  conceive  of  the  final  cause  or  end  of  action,  and  of  its  rela- 
tion to  the  efficient  cause,  has  been  a  problem  to  the  reflective 
mind  for  many  centuries. 

Is  the  end  a  cause  at  all  ?  Undoubtedly  we  sometimes  speak 
as  though  it  were.  Do  we  not  say  that  our  neighbor  rose  at  five 
o'clock  because  he  was  going  to  leave  on  the  six-o'clock  train  ? 
This  sounds  Aristotelian.  On  the  other  hand,  we  sometimes 


530  OtJier  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

describe  the  same  occurrence  by  saying  that  our  neighbor  •  rose 
early,  because  he  had  the  intention  of  leaving  on  an  early  train  — 
a  turn  of  phrase  which  Spinoza  would  have  regarded  as  prefer- 
able to  the  former.  "  What  is  called  the  final  cause,"  he  writes, 
"  is  nothing  but  human  impulse  itself,  in  so  far  as  it  is  considered 
as  the  efficient  or  determining  cause  of  something.  For  example, 
when  we  say  that  the  living  in  it  was  the  final  cause  of  this  or  that 
house,  we  mean  only  that  a  man,  because  he  formed  a  conception 
of  the  pleasures  of  domestic  life,  had  an  impulse  to  build  a  house. 
Hence,  the  living  in  it,  in  so  far  as  it  is  considered  as  final  cause, 
is  nothing  but  this  particular  impulse,  which,  in  truth,  is  the  effi- 
cient cause  ;  and  it  is  regarded  as  the  first,  because  men  are  com- 
monly ignorant  of  the  causes  of  their  impulses."  1  "I  will  add," 
he  complains  in  another  place,2  "  that  this  doctrine  of  final  causes 
simply  turns  nature  upside  down.  It  regards  as  effect  what  is 
really  cause,  and  vice  versa." 

This  is  a  protest  against  regarding  that  which  is  not  yet  as  a 
cause  of  that  which  is.  Can  the  non-existent  be  a  cause  ?  Can  it 
produce  anything  ?  The  living  in  a  house  comes  after  the  con- 
struction of  the  house  ;  how  can  it  be  a  cause  of  the  construction  ? 
The  real  cause,  says  Spinoza,  is  not  the  living  in  the  house  ;  that 
is  effect,  not  cause.  The  cause  is  the  idea,  the  human  impulse, 
which  works  itself  out  in  the  production  of  the  end. 

In  criticism  of  this  criticism  I  must  dwell  upon  two  points. 
First,  it  should  be  remarked  that  the  objection  —  one  which  has 
been  made  often  enough  since — is  really  an  objection  to  the  use 
of  a  word.  If  we  decide  that  the  word  "  cause  "  cannot  properly  be 
used  except  in  speaking  of  efficient  causes,  then  it  goes  without 
saying  that  final  causes  are  not  causes  at  all.  Thus  Spinoza  insists 
that  the  final  cause  or  end  is  not  cause,  but  effect  —  which  clearly 
indicates  that  he  thinks  the  word  "  cause  "  should  be  used  in  only 
the  one  sense.  He  is  certainly  right  in  holding  that  that  which 
is  spoken  of  as  end  or  final  cause  may  also  be  regarded  as  an 
effect  in  the  chain  of  efficient  causes  and  effects.  The  living  in  a 
house  is  not  a  fact  which  has  burst  into  being  from  nowhere  ;  it 
has  its  antecedents. 

But  it  seems  somewhat  dogmatic  to  insist  that  a  word  shall  have 
but  one  meaning  when  long  usage  has  granted  it  two  meanings. 
From  Aristotle  down,  men    had  distinguished  between    the  effi- 
111  Ethics,"  IV,  Preface.  2/&id,  I,  Appendix. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  531 

cient  cause  and  the  final,  and  had  often  done  so  with  some  degree 
of  clearness.  The  distinction  between  the  two  was  not  always 
well  grasped,  but  at  least  the  distinction  was  recognized.  It  is 
not  out  of  place  to  deplore  the  fact  that  one  and  the  same  word 
should  be  used  to  express  two  different  ideas,  nor  is  it  out  of 
place  to  point  out  that  men  are  actually  betrayed  now  and  then 
into  confusing  the  two  ideas  by  the  fact  that  the  one  word  is 
used  to  express  both.  But  to  insist  that  one  of  the  ideas  shall 
be  thrown  away,  or,  at  least,  left  without  a  word  to  express  it, 
seems,  as  I  have  said,  dogmatic,  and  it  is  certainly  unreasonable. 

However,  Spinoza's  protest  is,  to  the  reflective  mind,  of  no 
little  service  in  emphasizing  the  fact  that  final  causes  and  efficient 
must  not  be  confounded.  When  the  distinction  between  them 
is  grasped  with  sufficient  clearness,  it  is  seen  that  a  number  of 
apparent  problems  quite  lose  their  problematic  character.  For 
example,  the  objection  that  the  end  cannot  be  a  cause,  since  it 
has  not  yet  come  into  existence,  and  the  non-existent  cannot  be 
the  cause  of  anything,  falls  away  of  itself.  Of  course,  that  which 
has  not  existed  and  does  not  exist  cannot  be  the  efficient  cause  of 
anything  ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  to  prevent  it  from 
being  the  final  cause,  the  end.  The  end  is  that  which  is  to  be  ; 
it  would  be  absurd  to  make  it  that  which  has  been.  The  whole 
force  of  the  objection  lies  in  the  tacit  assumption  that  a  cause  is  a 
cause,  and  that,  as  such,  it  must  antecede  its  effect. 

The  same  assumption  lends  its  force  to  the  objection  that  the 
doctrine  of  final  causes  turns  nature  upside  down,  putting  cause 
in  the  place  of  effect  and  vice  versa.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
efficient  causes,  my  getting  up  at  five  o'clock  may  be  regarded  as 
a  cause  of  m}>-  departure  in  the  train  at  six  ;  but  there  is  no  reason 
in  the  world  why,  from  the  point  of  view  of  final  causes,  my 
leaving  at  six  should  not  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  my  getting 
up  at  five.  Nor  should  we  wonder  at  the  fact  that  the  same 
occurrence  should  have  both  efficient  cause  and  final  cause.  It 
would  be  remarkable  were  a  day  found  to  have  two  beginnings  ; 
it  is  in  no  wise  remarkable  that  it  is  found  to  have  a  beginning 
and  an  end. 

In  the  second  place,  I  must  call  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in 
the  first  extract  given  above,  Spinoza  was  not  a  good  Spinozist. 
He  sets  a  man's  conception  of  the  pleasures  of  domestic  life  in  the 
one  causal  nexus  with  the  building:  of  a  house.  In  other  words, 


532  Other  Mitids,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

he  puts  facts  mental  and  facts  physical  into  the  relation  of 
efficient  cause  and  effect,  which  is  such  heresy  in  a  parallelist 
that  we  must  assume  that  our  author  nodded  in  writing  the 
passage. 

However,  I  must  not  be  tempted  to  delay  over  what  has  been 
said  on  the  subject  of  final  causes  by  the  great  men  of  the  past. 
The  question  I  have  set  out  to  discuss  is  :  Shall  the  doctrine  of 
mind  and  matter  advocated  in  the  preceding  chapters  be  set  down 
as  repudiating  final  causes  ?  as  reducing  the  human  mind  to  a 
shadow  whose  desires  and  purposes  are  without  significance  ?  as 
turning  nature  into  brute  mechanism  —  a  thing  to  be  feared,  but 
in  no  wise  to  be  loved  ?  In  treating  this  question  I  shall  set 
forth  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  in  typical  modern  form  ;  and  I 
shall  then  try  to  make  clear  that,  when  certain  metaphysical  mis- 
conceptions are  set  aside,  —  misconceptions  the  setting  aside  of 
which  need  not  cause  the  least  concern  to  the  plain  man,  —  the 
doctrine  of  final  causes  may  be  frankly  accepted,  as  embodying 
truth,  by  one  who  approves  the  reasonings  contained  in  this 
volume. 

For  the  typical  statement  which  I  wish  to  set  before  the 
reader  I  turn  to  M.  Paul  Janet's  admirable  volume,1  the  clearest, 
the  fullest,  and  in  many  respects  the  most  satisfactory  discussion 
of  the  subject  that  we  have. 

"  The  expression  '  final  cause '  (causa  finalis)  was,"  writes  M. 
Janet,  "  introduced  into  philosophic  speech  by  the  scholastics.  It 
signifies  the  end  (finis^  for  which  one  acts,  or  toward  which  one 
tends,  and  which,  hence,  may  be  regarded  as  a  cause  of  action  or 
of  movement.  Aristotle  explains  it  thus  :  '  Another  sort  of 
cause,'  he  says,  '  is  the  end,  that  is  to  say,  that  in  view  of  which 
(TO  ov  evexa)  the  action  is  performed ;  for  example,  in  this  sense, 
health  is  the  cause  of  taking  a  walk.  Why  does  such  an  one  take 
a  walk  ?  It  is,  we  say,  in  order  to  have  good  health ;  and  when 
we  speak  thus,  we  believe  that  we  are  naming  the  cause.' 

"  Let  us  examine  closely  the  peculiar  character  of  this  sort  of 
cause.  Its  characteristic  is  that,  according  to  one's  point  of  view, 
the  same  fact  may  be  taken  either  as  cause  or  as  effect.  Health 
is  undoubtedly  the  cause  of  the  walk  ;  but  it  is  also  its  effect. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  health  does  not  come  until  after  the  walk, 
and  as  a  consequence  of  the  same  ;  it  is  because  a  certain  movement 
lu  Les  Causes  Finales,"  quatrieme  Edition,  Paris,  1901. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  533 

has  been  executed  by  my  will,  and,  under  its  direction,  by  my 
limbs,  that  the  state  of  well-being  has  resulted ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  another  sense,  it  was  to  obtain  this  state  of  well-being 
that  I  took  the  walk  ;  for  without  the  hope,  the  desire,  the  antici- 
pation of  the  benefit  of  health,  perhaps  I  should  not  have  gone 
out,  and  my  limbs  would  have  remained  at  rest.  One  man  kills 
another  :  in  a  sense,  the  death  of  the  latter  has  had  as  its  cause 
the  act  of  killing,  that  is,  the  act  of  burying  a  dagger  in  a  living 
body,  a  mechanical  cause  without  which  the  death  would  not  have 
resulted ;  but,  again,  the  act  of  killing  has  had  as  determining 
cause  the  will  to  kill ;  and  the  death  of  the  victim,  foreseen  and 
resolved  upon  in  advance  by  the  criminal,  has  been  the  determin- 
ing cause  of  the  crime.  Thus,  a  final  cause  is  a  fact  that  may,  in 
a  sense,  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  its  own  cause  ;  as,  however,  it 
is  impossible  for  it  to  be  a  cause  before  it  exists,  the  true  cause  is 
not  the  fact  itself,  but  its  idea.  In  other  words,  it  is  a  foreseen 
effect  which  could  have  had  no  existence  had  it  not  been  fore- 
seen."1 

To  this  definition  of  final  cause  M.  Janet  sees  that  some  will 
be  inclined  to  offer  objections.  The  definition  is  adjusted  to  the 
most  striking  instance  of  final  cause  which  falls  within  our  knowl- 
edge. Man  clearly  foresees  ends,  and  consciously  chooses  the 
means  to  their  attainment ;  but  we  cannot  assume  that  the  same 
conscious  prevision  presides  over  the  instinctive  actions  of  the 
brute  ;  and  still  farther  down  in  the  scale  we  find  the  tendency 
of  all  organized  matter  to  arrange  itself  in  conformity  with  the 
idea  of  a  living  whole. 

"  Hence,  reflective  consciousness  does  not  in  fact  exist  every- 
where where  we  find  or  think  we  find  ends  in  nature ;  but,  wher- 
ever we  suppose  such  ends,  we  cannot  but  conceive  of  the  final  effect 
as  represented  in  advance,  if  not  clearly  and  consciously,  at  least  in 
some  way  or  other,  in  the  agent  which  produces  the  effect.  In  order 
that  a  fact  may  be  called  a  final  cause,  it  is  necessary  that  the  whole 
series  of  phenomena  summoned  to  produce  it  should  be  subordi- 
nated to  it.  This  phenomenon,  not  yet  produced,  governs  and 
commands  the  whole  series,  which  would  plainly  be  incomprehen- 
sible and  contrary  to  every  law  of  causality  if  the  phenomenon 
did  not  have  some  sort  of  existence  —  an  ideal  existence  —  before 
the  combination  of  which  it  is  at  once  cause  and  result.  Let  us 

i  PP.  1-2. 


534  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

say,  then,  taking  up  and  correcting  the  definition  given  above, 
that  the  final  cause,  as  given  us  in  experience,  is  an  effect  which 
is,  if  not  foreseen,  at  least  predetermined,  and  which,  because  of 
this  predetermination,  conditions  and  commands  the  series  of 
phenomena  of  which  it  appears  to  be  the  result.  Hence  it  is,  once 
again,  a  fact  that  may  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  its  own  cause."  * 

M.  Janet  maintains,  with  great  justice,  that  we  should  never 
think  of  ends  as  existing  in  nature,  were  man  not  conscious  of 
selecting  ends  and  employing  means  to  their  attainment  :  "  Expe- 
rience presents  us  unmistakably,  in  a  given  case,  with  a  real  and 
certain  cause,  which  we  call  the  final  cause  :  is  it  not  legitimate 
to  assume  the  same  cause  in  analogous  cases,  with  a  degree  of 
probability  increasing  or  diminishing  with  the  analogy  itself? 
We  are  not  passing  from  a  thing  of  one  kind  to  things  of  a  wholly 
different  kind  ;  but,  in  the  same  general  class,  that  is  to  say, 
within  the  realm  of  nature,  given  a  certain  number  of  homogeneous 
facts,  we  follow  the  thread  of  analogy  as  far  as  it  will  lead  us, 
and  up  to  the  point  at  which  it  abandons  us.  This  is,  in  truth, 
the  inductive  process  that  the  human  mind  follows  in  the  affirma- 
tion of  final  causes  outside  of  ourselves."2 

This  analogical  argument  leads  M.  Janet  far  ;  it  reveals  to 
him  the  presence  of  final  causes  over  a  very  wide  field,  and  it 
brings  him  ultimately  to  the  real  goal  of  his  inquiry,  the  proof 
that  a  Divine  Mind  is  revealed  in  nature.  As  the  reader  will 
see  later,  I  am  in  hearty  sympathy  with  the  general  view  of  nature 
advocated  by  M.  Janet,  though  I  may  differ  from  him  in  some 
details.  That  not  merely  the  little  world  of  man,  but  that  the 
great  world  beyond  him,  is  to  be  regarded  as  revealing  mind  — 
a  Divine  Mind  —  I  feel  impelled  to  maintain.  That  the  argu- 
ment may  be  carried  so  far,  all  are  not  prepared  to  admit.  But 
there  is  no  one  who  does  not  recognize  the  presence  of  final  causes 
—  I  here  use  the  expression  without  delaying  to  criticise  it  —  at 
least  somewhere  in  the  realm  that  lies  beyond  the  circumscribed 
field  of  conscious  human  activities. 

Surely  no  one  will  care  to  deny  that  certain  of  the  brutes 
sometimes  fix  upon  ends  and  attain  them  by  the  employment  of 
means,  much  as  man  does.  And  in  the  phenomena  of  instinct, 
and,  beyond  and  below  this,  in  a  very  wide  circle  of  phenomena 
presented  by  living  organisms,  whether  of  a  high  or  of  a  low  order. 
Jp.  4.  2  p.  131. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  535 

we  see  something  so  analogous  to  the  adjustment  of  means  to 
ends  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  sphere  of  human  activities, 
that  it  seems  'eminently  natural  for  us  to  find  in  nature  a  wide 
distribution  of  ends  and  not  merely  of  results.  This  way  of  con- 
templating the  phenomena  of  nature  is  reflected  in  common  speech, 
and  even  in  the  language  of  science,  as  one  may  convince  oneself 
by  the  perusal  of  some  standard  text-book  of  physiology  or  of 
biology. 

With  the  scope  of  the  argument  from  analogy  this  chapter  is 
not  concerned.  M.  Janet  is,  as  I  have  said,  quite  right  in  main- 
taining that  the  whole  edifice  rests  upon  the  foundation,  furnished 
by  our  experience,  that  man  fixes  upon  ends  and  employs  means. 
It  is  one  thing  to  seek  to  discover  what  phenomena  in  nature 
may  properly  be  described  as  ends,  and  it  is  another  to  strive  to 
attain  to  a  clear  conception  of  the  significance  of  the  concept  itself. 
This  is  our  present  task,  and  we  can  best  perform  it  by  study- 
ing the  final  cause  in  the  most  striking  instance  in  which  it  can 
come  before  our  contemplation. 

When  we  come  to  examine  closely  M.  Janet's  account  of  it, 
we  cannot  but  remark  certain  loosenesses  of  expression.  Thus, 
we  are  told  that  it  is  characteristic  of  the  final  cause  that,  according 
to  one's  point  of  view,  the  same  fact  may  be  taken  as  cause  or  as 
effect.  Health  is  the  cause  of  the  walk  ;  it  is  also  its  effect.  It 
is  the  latter,  because  health  does  not  come  until  after  the  walk  ; 
it  is  the  former,  because,  without  the  idea  of  health,  the  limbs 
would  not  have  been  set  in  motion. 

Reflection  upon  this  illustration  compels  us  to  enter  a  double 
objection  to  the  statement  that  the  same  fact  may  be  taken  as  cause 
or  as  effect.  In  the  first  place,  health  and  the  idea  of  health  are 
by  no  means  the  same  fact.  The  one  is  a  fact  in  the  physical 
world,  and  the  other  a  fact  in  the  realm  of  mind ;  they  are  not 
only  two  facts,  but  two  facts  belonging  to  different  orders ;  and  it 
is  surely  inadmissible  to  think  of  them  and  to  speak  of  them  so 
vaguely  that  they  seem  to  melt  into  one.  Spinoza  emphasizes 
this  objection. 

In  the  second  place,  when  we  place  the  words  "  cause  "  and 
"  effect "  in  a  relation  of  contrast,  we  almost  necessarily  suggest 
that  we  have  reference  to  the  order  of  efficient  causes  and  their 
effects  —  that  we  are  using  words  in  a  natural  and  unambiguous 
sense,  and  are  putting  together  what  might  be  expected  to  go 


536  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

together.  It  would,  indeed,  be  strange  could  the  same  identical 
fact  be  at  once  cause  and  effect  in  an  unambiguous  sense.  But 
that  the  same  fact  should  be  cause  in  one  sense  and  effect  in  an 
unrelated  sense  is  a  truth  not  even  worthy  of  remark.  The  same 
tiresome  old  rake  may  be  at  once  "  fast "  and  "  slow "  in  senses 
of  the  word  sanctioned  by  popular  usage.  The  sentence  under 
criticism  appears  to  assume  tacitly  that  a  cause  is  a  cause,  and 
that  the  different  senses  of  the  word  need  not  be  kept  so  very 
clearly  distinct.  Spinoza  recognized  but  one  sense  of  the  word 
"  cause,"  and  was  led  to  deny  the  existence  of  final  causes;  M.  Janet 
accepts  the  final  cause,  but  he  seems  to  assimilate  it  to  the  efficient. 
When  one  does  this,  one  loses  sight  of  its  true  nature. 

That  this  confusion  really  is  present  seems  to  be  made  even 
more  clear  in  the  second  illustration  given.  A  man's  death  has 
had  as  its  cause  the  act  of  killing  ;  but  the  act  of  killing  has  had 
as  determining  cause  the  will  to  kill,  and  thus  the  death  of  the 
victim,  foreseen  and  willed  by  the  criminal,  has  been  the  deter- 
mining cause  of  the  crime. 

What,  precisely,  does  this  mean?  Does  determining  mwsemean 
efficient  cause  ?  Apparently  it  does,  and  we  are  to  understand 
that  a  certain  mental  phenomenon  is  the  efficient  cause  of  the  act 
of  killing,  as  the  act  of  killing  is  the  efficient  cause  of  the  death. 
But  how  can  this  justify  one  in  concluding  that  "a  final  cause  is 
a  fact  that  may,  in  a  sense,  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  its  own 
cause  "  ?  Of  which  fact  are  we  here  speaking  ?  Of  a  man's  death. 
Has  it  been  pointed  out  that  this  has  been  the  cause  of  anything 
whatever  ?  Not  in  the  least.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the 
death  as  foreseen  and  willed,  i.e.  not  the  death  itself,  but  the  idea  of  it, 
has  been  the  efficient  cause  of  something.  Whence,  then,  the  con- 
clusion that  the  death  is  the  cause  of  its  own  cause  ?  Evidently, 
the  conclusion  is  the  result  of  an  identification  of  the  death  with 
a  certain  other  phenomenon  from  which  it  is  numerically  distinct, 
and  which  is  regarded  as  the  cause  of  the  cause  of  the  death.  And 
the  death  is  made  a  final  cause  for  the  reason  that  its  identification 
with  an  efficient  cause  gives  it  an  unmistakable  flavor  of  causality, 
while  its  place  at  the  end  of  a  series  of  occurrences  makes  it  impos- 
sible frankly  to  recognize  this  illegitimately  transferred  causality 
as  efficient. 

That  the  reasoning  is  not  of  the  strictest  M.  Janet  appears  to 
recognize.  He  has  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  a  final  cause  is 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  537 

a  fact  that  may,  in  a  sense,  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  its  own 
cause,  and  he  goes  on  to  show  that  that  sense  is  a  very  loose  one : 
the  death  cannot  be  a  cause  before  it  exists,  and  hence  the  true 
cause  is  not  the  death  itself,  but  its  idea. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  bring  out  more  clearly  the  fact  that 
final  causes  and  efficient  are  confused  to  the  detriment  of  the 
former.  Shall  we  accept  as  true  without  limitation  the  statement 
that  a  fact  cannot  be  a  cause  before  it  exists?  Surely  not;  this  is 
true  of  efficient  causes,  but  not  of  final.  The  final  cause,  the  end, 
must  come  last.  If  it  is  to  be  a  cause  at  all,  it  must  be  a  cause 
before  it  exists.  And  what  shall  we  say  touching  the  statement 
that  the  true  cause  is  not  the  fact  itself,  but  its  idea?  Does  this 
not  deny  the  existence  of  final  causes  as  flatly  as  ever  they  were 
denied  by  Spinoza  ?  Does  it  not  affirm  that  there  is  really  no 
cause  but  the  efficient,  and  imply  that  a  man's  death,  to  be  a  cause 
at  all,  must  be  an  efficient  cause  of  something  ?  But  what,  then, 
becomes  of  the  statement  that  a  final  cause  is  a  fact  which  may 
be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  its  own  cause  ?  It  lapses  absolutely  : 
nothing  can  be  the  efficient  cause  of  its  own  efficient  cause,  and 
we  have  denied  real  existence  to  causes  of  any  other  sort. 

I  shall  not  delay  to  discuss  the  emendation  of  the  definition 
of  final  cause  suggested  by  M.  Janet.  What  can  it  mean  to 
say  that  a  final  cause  is  a  predetermined  effect,  which,  in  virtue 
of  this  predetermination,  conditions  and  commands  the  series  of 
phenomena  of  which  it  appears  to  be  the  result  ?  Is  not  every 
effect  of  an  efficient  cause  predetermined  ?  And  what  is  it  to 
condition  and  command  a  series  of  phenomena  ?  Is  it  to  con- 
dition them  as  the  efficient  cause  conditions  its  effect  ?  This  the 
final  cause  should  not  do  ;  and  yet,  apparently,  this  the  final  cause 
must  do,  for  M.  Janet  concludes  that,  in  virtue  of  this  condition- 
ing, the  final  cause  may  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  its  own 
cause. 

It  must  be  evident  to  the  reader  that  the  final  cause,  as  such, 
the  end,  has  been  virtually  abandoned  by  M.  Janet,  and  something 
else  has  been  put  in  its  place.  This  something  is  an  efficient 
cause  of  a  certain  kind  —  an  idea  ;  and  it  is  with  the  proof  that 
such  ideas  exist  and  must  be  appealed  to  in  any  explanation  of 
the  phenomena  of  nature,  that  M.  Janet  concerns  himself  in  his 
book. 

Briefly  stated,  his  argument  is  as  follows :  Causes  must  not 


538  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

be  multiplied  unnecessarily.  Where  a  mechanical  explanation 
suffices,  we  need  not  assume  final  causes  ;  if  it  sufficed  every- 
where, they  would  not  have  to  be  assumed  at  all.  But  mechan- 
ism will  not  suffice  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  nature  ;  hence, 
we  must  have  recourse  to  final  causes  (i.e.  to  ideas).1 

M.  Janet  points  out  that  there  are  in  nature  an  indefinite 
number  of  relatively  independent  chains  of  causes  and  effects. 
Where  these  cross  each  other,  we  have  complicated  effects  which 
we  attribute  to  "  chance."  I  may,  in  gambling,  bet  upon  the  red 
or  the  black  ;  I  may  win  ;  it  is  clear  that  my  choice  has  not 
influenced  the  turning  up  of  a  given  card,  nor  has  the  dis- 
position of  the  cards  affected  my  choice.  The  harmony  which  has 
resulted  is  a  chance  harmony.  But  when  a  given  coordination  of 
phenomena  has  recurred  repeatedly,  when  the  coordination  is  a 
constant  one,  a  cause  must  be  sought,  not  merely  for  each  phe- 
nomenon concerned,  but  for  the  constancy  of  the  coordination. 
This  every  one  recognizes.  When  we  turn  our  attention  to  certain 
striking  instances  of  such  coordination,  for  example,  when  we 
consider  certain  mechanisms  constructed  by  man,  we  see  that  a 
reference  to  final  causes  is  indispensable  ;  the  coordination  can 
only  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  an  end  was  held  in  view.  This 
furnishes  us  with  a  type  of  explanation  which  serves  to  piece  out 
the  deficiencies  of  the  mechanical  explanation  of  nature.2 

Now,  the  question  before  us  is,  how  much  of  M.  Janet's 
doctrine  must  a  man  reject,  when  once  he  has  been  led  to 
accept  the  parallelistic  view  of  mind  and  matter  which  I  have 
advocated  ? 

For  one  thing,  he  must  reject  the  confusion  of  the  final  cause 
proper,  the  end,  with  the  idea  of  the  end.  These  should  be 
distinguished  by  every  one,  but  their  confusion  appears  to  be 
peculiarly  unpardonable  in  one  who  relegates  ideas  and  material 
things  to  different  orders.  When  one  has  rejected  this,  one  has 
lost  nothing  save  the  misleading  statement  that  something  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  cause  of  its  own  cause  —  in  other  words,  one  has 
not  lost,  but  gained. 

In   the    second   place,  he   must   reject  the  notion  that  ideas, 

1  Preface,  iii,  v. 

2  Chapters  I,  III,  V.    I  am  here  only  concerned  with  the  argument  for  the  assump- 
tion of  final  causes  in  the  first  instance.     Whether  they  may  ultimately  be  regarded 
as  embracing  all  nature  is  another  question. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  539 

mental  phenomena,  must  be  assumed  to  play  the  role  of  efficient 
causes  of  a  certain  type,  and  to  supplement  the  deficiencies  of 
mechanical  causes.  He  cannot  patch  up  a  machine  with  imma- 
terial patches.  Does  it  follow  from  this  that  mental  phenomena 
are  not  to  be  assumed,  and  that  the  conceptions  purpose  and  end 
are  to  be  eliminated  from  our  view  of  nature  ?  Not  in  the  least. 
What  has  been  rejected  need  cause  no  concern  to  the  plain  man, 
for  his  world  of  purposes  and  ends  remains  unshaken.  Nor  is  the 
analogical  argument,  upon  which  M.  Janet  has  depended  for  the 
extension  of  the  realm  of  purposes  and  ends,  affected  in  the  least. 

This  ought  to  become  evident  to  one  who  grasps  clearly  the 
distinction  between  efficient  causes  and  final,  and  the  significance 
of  that  distinction.  The  distinction,  of  course,  exists  in  common 
thought,  but,  like  other  distinctions  drawn  in  common  thought,  it 
is  somewThat  vaguely  apprehended.  The  plain  man  recognizes 
that  there  is  a  physical  order  of  causes  and  effects.  The  finger 
on  the  trigger  ignites  the  powder,  the  bullet  leaves  the  gun,  it 
reaches  a  certain  point,  and  a  man  is  laid  low.  The  same  man 
recognizes  that  there  is  also  a  different  way  of  viewing  the 
occurrence,  in  which  the  fall  of  a  man  is  related  in  a  peculiar 
way  to  an  idea.  It  is  no  longer  merely  a  result,  it  is  an  end. 

Now,  the  order  of  physical  causes  is  imperfectly  known  to 
any  one ;  to  the  plain  man  it  is  very  imperfectly  known ;  and,  in 
certain  instances,  the  fact  there  is  such  an  order  may  be  quite 
overlooked.  What  that  order  may  be  is  always  a  legitimate 
subject  for  scientific  investigation.  A  man  raises  his  finger ;  he 
is  conscious  that  he  thought  of  doing  so,  and  he  may  hold  that  his 
intention  was  the  cause,  and  the  immediate  cause,  of  the  motion. 
The  physiologist  is  not  content  with  his  view  of  the  case,  but  con- 
structs for  him  a  complicated  chain  of  physical  causes  and  effects 
of  which  he  had  no  consciousness.  The  intention  is  no  longer 
directly  related  to  the  motion  of  the  finger  —  it  is  referred  to 
some  motion  in  the  brain.  It  still  remains  true  that  intention 
and  motion  are  referred  to  each  other ;  they  still  remain  purpose 
and  end,  but  the  peculiar  causal  relation  which  was  supposed  to 
exist  between  them  has  been  found  not  to  exist.  Investigation 
has  revealed  an  order  of  causes  the  existence  of  which  had  been 
overlooked. 

Shall  our  plain  man,  after  his  conference  with  the  physiologist, 
correct  his  former  view  only  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  the  inten- 


540  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

tion  is  not  the  proximate  cause  of  the  movement  of  the  finger, 
but  is  the  proximate  cause  of  the  motion  in  the  brain — a  cause 
as  the  latter  is  the  cause  of  what  succeeds  it  ?  It  is  open  to  him 
to  do  so,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  what  he  inclines  to  do.  But  it 
should  be  remarked  that  his  first  impression  of  the  relation  of 
intention  and  movement  has  been  found  to  be  erroneous,  and 
has  been  replaced  by  a  view  which  is  the  result  of  some  scientific 
investigation.  The  second  position  which  he  takes  is  not  the 
result  of  a  direct  appeal  to  experience,  if  by  a  direct  appeal  to 
experience  we  mean  an  appeal  to  an  experience  unenriched  by 
the  fruits  of  scientific  thought.  It  is  really  an  appeal  to  science, 
and  whether  it  is  wise  to  take  and  keep  this  position  is  a  question 
to  be  decided,  not  by  the  plain  man,  but  by  the  scholar,  for  it  is 
only  the  latter  who  is  in  a  position  to  judge  whether  what  is 
known  of  mental  phenomena  and  of  physical  justifies  us  in  re- 
garding them  as  standing  in  the  relation  indicated.  The  con- 
siderations brought  forward  in  certain  of  the  preceding  chapters J 
seem  to  make  it  clear  that  the  relation  between  intention  and 
movement  cannot  be  a  causal  relation  at  all,  in  the  usual  sense 
of  the  word  cause,  i.e.  they  seem  to  show  that  it  is  absurd  to 
connect  ideas  and  movements  as  one  may  connect  movement  with 
movement. 

I  beg  the  reader  to  observe  that  the  plain  man  found  in  his 
experience  at  the  outset  the  relation  of  intention  and  end.  He 
intended  to  move  his  finger  and  his  finger  moved.  He  has  reason 
to  believe  that  whenever  he  has  a  similar  mental  experience  his 
finger  will  move.  This  is  to  him  a  very  important  fact,  and  its 
significance  for  his  world  of  interests  and  desires  cannot  be 
overestimated. 

Now,  when  he  has  taken  counsel  of  the  physiologist,  and  has 
become,  as  to  speak,  a  Cartesian,  recognizing  a  series  of  physical 
causes  resulting  in  the  movement  of  the  finger,  but  placing  at 
the  head  of  the  series  his  will  to  move,  his  intention,  —  when  he 
has  done  this,  he  has  left  unaffected  the  relation  of  intention  and 
end  which  he  found  in  his  experience  in  the  first  instance.  He 
has  only  modified  his  conception  of  Jioiv  intentions  and  ends  are 
connected  with  one  another ;  lie  has  come  to  a  clearer  conception 
of  the  world-order,  and  he  finds  in  it,  as  before,  the  relation  in 
which  he  is  so  much  interested. 

1  Chapters  XVII  to  XXIV. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  541 

Suppose  that  he  goes  farther,  and  becomes  a  parallelist.  Do 
intentions  and  ends  disappear  from  his  world,  or  even  change  in 
any  manner  their  proper  character  ?  Is  the  relation  of  intention 
to  end  to  be  regarded  as  less  constant,  as  less  to  be  depended  upon  ? 

Surely  not.  The  man  has  attained  to  a  much  clearer  idea  of 
the  world-order.  He  no  longer  confuses  mental  phenomena  and 
physical,  throwing  them  together  as  though  they  did  not  belong 
to  distinct  classes.  But  his  world  is  emphatically  a  world  of 
matter  and  mind,  and  he  has  no  excuse  for  overlooking  any  sig- 
nificant relations  among  the  phenomena  of  which  it  is  composed. 
If  he  refuses  to  place  an  idea  in  the  one  chain  of  causes  and 
effects  with  a  series  of  movements  in  matter,  he,  nevertheless, 
regards  the  idea  as  holding  to  certain  movements  in  matter — to 
brain  changes  —  a  relation  as  uniform  and  unvarying  as  that 
between  physical  causes  and  their  effects.  The  man  who  is  not 
a  parallelist  connects  intentions  with  ends  ;  so  does  the  paral- 
lelist ;  and,  when  he  is  rightly  understood,  he  is  found  to  cast 
no  doubt  whatever  upon  the  uniformity  of  the  relation. 

But  in  the  argument  for  final  causes  given  above — it  might 
better  be  called  the  argument  for  ideal  causes  —  certain  ideas 
were  assumed  to  exist  on  the  ground  that  certain  coordinations 
of  phenomena,  given  in  experience,  necessitated  the  assumption  of 
such  ideas,  as  sufficient  cause.  If  one  maintains  that  ideas  cannot 
be  the  causes  of  material  changes,  does  one  not  lose  one's  reason 
for  assuming  the  ideas  ?  Does  not  the  general  argument  for 
final  (ideal)  causes  lapse  ? 

I  beg  the  reader  to  recall  to  mind  what  I  have  said  in  discuss- 
ing the  existence  of  other  minds  and  their  distribution.1  The 
argument  for  other  minds  is  quite  independent  of  the  assumption 
that  mental  phenomena  stand  in  causal  relations  with  material. 
Of  course,  if  a  man  assumes  that  intention  and  end,  idea  and 
movement,  as  he  observes  them  in  his  experience,  are  related  as 
efficient  cause  and  effect,  it  is  but  natural  for  him  to  generalize 
and  to  maintain  that  the  ideas  which  the  argument  from  analogy 
leads  him  to  assume,  when  he  contemplates  certain  complexes  of 
phenomena,  must  stand  in  a  causal  relation  to  those  complexes. 
But  he  whose  reflections  upon  mind  and  matter  have  led  him  to 
correct  the  first  hasty  interpretations  of  common  thought,  may 
maintain  that  his  own  intention,  his  idea,  is  not  related  to  his 
1  Chapters  XXVII  and  XXVIII. 


542  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

end,  to  the  movement,  as  cause  is  related  to  effect,  but  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  concomitant  of  what  is  so  related,  of  certain 
brain-changes  which  are  themselves  unknown.  Upon  this  basis 
he  may  generalize  precisely  as  did  the  other  man.  He  does  not 
assume  ideas  to  piece  out  the  deficiencies  of  a  mechanism,  but  he 
does  assume  ideas  ;  and  there  is,  as  I  have  said,  nothing  in  his 
doctrine  that  tends  to  render  less  significant  the  relation  of 
intention  and  end. 

The  reasonings  of  the  parallelist  need  really  cause  no  concern 
to  the  plain  man.  It  does  not  matter  one  whit  to  him  whether  his 
idea  stands  in  a  strictly  causal  relation  to  a  given  motion  or  series 
of  motions  in  matter,  or  does  not.  What  interests  him  is  to  know 
that  the  relation  of  intention  and  end  is  a  constant  one  and  may 
be  counted  upon  with  confidence.  To  be  sure,  when  he  is  told 
that  his  idea  stands  in  no  causal  relation  to  his  act,  he  is  apt  to 
feel  misgivings.  When  he  is  called  an  epi-phenomenon,  a  shadow, 
an  otiose  thing,  his  feelings  are  outraged.  It  is  only  natural  that 
they  should  be. 

The  application  of  these  abusive  epithets  necessarily  suggests 
that  his  idea,  his  plan,  is  a  thing  without  significance.  He  forms 
a  plan  ;  he  carries  it  out  ;  there  are  changes  in  the  physical  world 
which  would  not,  he  is  sure,  have  taken  place  had  he  never  formed 
the  plan.  Is  he  to  be  told  that  this  planning  has  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  result?  Does  not  every  one  say:  I  went,  because  I 
decided  to  do  so  ?  I  built  the  house,  because  I  wished  a  house  ? 
Must  this  because  be  dropped  out  altogether,  and  must  his  own 
activity  be  repudiated  ? 

I  insist  strenuously  upon  the  fact  that,  in  rejecting  all  such 
insinuations,  the  man  is  entirely  in  the  right.  It  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  bear  in  mind  that,  if  the  parallelistic  doctrine  which 
has  been  advocated  in  this  volume  is  correct,  and  if  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  subjective  order  and  those  of  the  objective  order  do 
correspond,  as  I  have  maintained,  then  it  is  quite  true  that,  if  the 
man  had  not  formed  a  plan,  the  changes  in  question  would  not  have 
taken  place  in  the  physical  world.  This  does  not  mean  that  his  plan 
and  those  changes  stand  in  the  one  causal  nexus.  But  the  state- 
ment is  literally  true,  nevertheless  :  had  he  not  formed  the  plan, 
the  changes  would  not  have  taken  place.  The  relation  is  a  con- 
stant one  ;  as  constant,  if  the  doctrine  of  parallelism  be  true,  as 
any  relation  between  physical  causes  and  their  effects. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  543 

May  we  go  farther,  and  say  :  The  changes  took  place  because 
he  formed  the  plan  ?  Surely  we  may,  if  our  purpose  be  to  point 
out,  by  such  a  mode  of  speech,  the  constant  relation  between  plan 
and  accomplishment  —  to  dwell  upon  the  indispensableness  of  the 
plan.  Without  some  such  form  of  expression  we  cannot  get  on  ; 
and  I  have  indicated  above  that  it  is  foolish  to  torture  common 
speech  until  it  becomes  a  stumbling-block  and  an  offence.  We 
are  totally  ignorant  of  the  brain-changes  which,  in  the  physical 
order,  correspond  to  the  formation  of  the  plan,  and  which  stand  in 
a  causal  relation  with  the  accomplishment.  It  is  of  no  use  to  refer 
to  them,  when  we  are  trying  to  connect  phenomenon  with  phe- 
nomenon in  a  serviceable  way.  But  the  plan  is  open  to  inspec- 
tion, it  is  known,  it  is  indispensable  to  the  accomplishment  ;  and 
the  plain  man  is  right  in  objecting  to  any  form  of  expression 
which  minimizes  its  importance. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  remarked  :  Ah  !  but  is  it  indispensable  ? 
Is  it  not,  at  least,  conceivable,  since  plan  and  accomplishment  do 
not  stand  in  the  one  causal  nexus,  and  since  the  series  of  causes 
that  leads  to  the  result  is  complete  without  the  plan  —  is  it  not, 
at  least,  conceivable  that  the  result  might  have  been  produced 
without  any  plan  at  all  ?  I  answer,  it  is  not  conceivable  in  the 
only  world  with  which  we  have  to  do,  the  world  of  matter  and  of 
minds  which  is  revealed  in  our  experience.  What  is  possible  and 
impossible  must  be  discovered  by  an  investigation  into  the  consti- 
tution of  this  world.  It  is  not  profitable  to  speculate  regarding 
the  possibility  that,  in  worlds  differently  constituted  from  ours, 
physical  results  of  the  sort  which  we  justly  regard  as  indicative 
of  the  existence  of  purpose,  might  be  produced  and  yet  have  no 
such  significance. 

To  most  men  the  denial  that  there  is  a  causal  relation  between 
phenomena  seems  tantamount  to  the  assertion  that  the  relation 
between  them  is  an  accidental  one.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the 
denial  that  plan  and  accomplishment  are  causally  related  seems  to 
the  plain  man  to  make  his  plan  a  thing  of  little  moment.  But,  if 
the  parallelist  is  right,  there  are  relations  —  the  relations  between 
mental  phenomena  and  physical  —  which  are  not  causal,  and  yet 
which  it  would  be  absurd  to  call  accidental.  They  are  as  much 
to  be  depended  upon  as  any  relations  which  obtain  between  phe- 
nomena ;  they  belong  to  the  very  constitution  of  the  world  in 
which  we  live,  and  to  overlook  them  or  to  suppose  them  less 


544  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

stable  than  they  are,  is  seriously  to  misconceive  the  nature  of 
that  world. 

Both  parallelist  and  plain  man  must  admit  that  it  is  not  every 
plan  that  is  followed  by  accomplishment.  Even  the  man  who 
desires  to  move  his  finger  may  find  himself  unable  to  do  so,  for 
various  reasons.  But  the  probability  that,  in  a  given  instance, 
plan  will  be  followed  by  accomplishment  is  just  the  same  for  the 
plain  man  and  for  the  parallelist.  The  former  need  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  allowing  the  latter  to  open  his  eyes  for  him ;  he  is  in 
danger  of  losing  absolutely  nothing  save  a  few  misconceptions 
which  it  will  in  no  wise  hurt  him  to  lose. 

When  his  eyes  are  once  thoroughly  opened  he  will  see  that  it 
is  wholly  unjust  to  apply  to  mental  phenomena  such  offensive 
epithets  as  "  epi-phenomenon  "  and  "shadow."  They  necessarily 
suggest  that  the  mind  is  not  active,  that  it  does  nothing.  Before 
making  so  serious  a  charge  as  this,  it  is  surely  incumbent  upon  the 
philosopher  to  investigate  carefully  the  meaning  of  such  statements 
as  that,  in  a  given  instance,  a  man  is  active,  or  does  something, 
and  that,  in  another  instance,  he  is  passive,  or  has  something  done 
to  him. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  *  I  have  pointed  out  that,  in  the  realm  of 
the  purely  physical,  the  notions  of  activity  and  passivity  have  no 
place.  They  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  those  of  cause 
and  effect.  A  man  is  hurrying  to  a  railway-station  ;  that  is,  a 
complex  system  of  atoms,  which  is,  as  a  system,  constantly  under- 
going some  change,  is  at  the  same  time  as  a  whole  changing  its 
space-relations  to  other  systems  or  groups  of  atoms.  The  man  is 
struck  down  by  a  falling  tile  ;  that  is,  the  above-mentioned  group 
of  atoms  has  undergone  a  considerable  change  in  consequence  of 
its  having  come  into  a  certain  relation  with  a  given  group  of  atoms, 
and  a  certain  series  of  motions  has  been  brought  to  an  end. 
There  is  no  moment  at  which  the  actual  state  of  affairs  —  the 
position  and  motion  of  every  atom  within  and  without  the  man  — 
may  not  (theoretically)  be  accounted  for  as  the  result  of  mechan- 
ical causes  ;  and  there  is  no  moment  at  which  the  changes  which 
are  taking  place  can  be  referred  wholly  to  his  body  or  wholly  to 
what  is  outside  of  it. 

As  he  runs,  he  is  not  independent  of  the  ground  upon  which 
he  treads  ;  when  he  falls,  the  tile  cannot  be  regarded  as  the  sole 

i  Chapter  XV. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  545 

cause  of  the  change.  He  falls  as  much  because  he  is  what  he  is 
and  where  he  is,  as  he  does  because  the  tile  is  what  it  is  and  has 
been  moving  as  it  has.  From  the  point  of  view  of  mechanics,  we 
have  a  series  of  changes,  and  we  have  causes  of  those  changes. 
Those  causes  always  embrace  both  the  man  and  his  environment. 
Hence,  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  the  man  is  the  cause  of  the  advance 
up  the  street,  and  the  tile  is  the  cause  of  the  fall  to  the  ground. 
It  is  absurd,  that  is,  to  speak  thus  when  one  is  attempting  to  be 
scientifically  accurate  ;  to  avoid  the  statement  when  common 
intercourse  makes  it  convenient  to  use  it,  savors  of  pedantry. 

We  do  not,  then,  regard  something  as  active,  as  doing  this  or 
that,  merely  on  the  ground  that  it  is  an  efficient  cause  ;  nor  do  we 
regard  it  as  passive,  as  suffering,  as  having  something  done  to  it, 
merely  on  the  ground  that  it  is  an  effect.  In  its  encounter  with 
the  tile,  the  man's  body  is  a  concurrent  cause  of  its  own  demoli- 
tion —  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  its  being  what  it  is  at  the  one 
instant  is  a  concurrent  cause  of  its  being  what  it  is  at  the  next. 
It  is  cause  as  well  as  effect ;  cause  at  the  one  instant  and  effect  at 
the  next.  What,  then,  can  we  mean  by  calling  the  man  passive  ? 
Why  do  we  distinguish  so  clearly  between  the  headlong  chase  and 
the  sudden  fall  ? 

We  draw  the  distinction  simply  because  we  do  not  remain 
within  the  realm  of  the  purely  physical.  To  physical  changes  we 
relate  mental  phenomena,  and  we  make  classifications  which  would 
be  impossible  but  for  this.  When  a  man  is  occupied  in  catching 
a  train,  when  he  is,  as  we  say,  active,  we  recognize  that  he  has  a 
purpose  and  an  end.  That  is  to  say,  we  recognize  that  what  is  in 
his  mind  is  indispensable  to  the  coming  into  being  of  a  certain 
physical  condition  of  things.  When  he  is  crushed  by  a  falling 
tile,  we  know  that  the  condition  of  things  is  not  to  be  referred  to 
an  idea  in  his  mind.  Something  has  happened  to  the  man ;  he 
has  not  done  it  himself  —  these  words  mean  nothing,  when  all 
reference  to  his  mind  has  been  left  out  of  account. 

Now,  we  have  seen  above  that  the  relation  of  plan  and  accom- 
plishment, of  purpose  and  end,  is  not  done  away  with  in  any 
manner,  when  the  plain  man  attains  some  degree  of  enlightenment, 
and  no  longer  regards  his  volition  as  the  proximate  cause  of  a 
bodily  movement.  We  have  also  seen  that,  when  he  becomes  still 
more  enlightened,  and  refuses  to  recognize  mental  phenomena  as 
causes  at  all,  this  same  relation,  in  which  we  are  necessarily  so 

2N 


546  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

deeply  interested,  remains  unaffected.  And  now  that  we  have  seen 
that  our  notions  of  activity  and  passivity  draw  their  whole  significance 
from  this  relation  of  purpose  and  end,  and  are  never  to  be  confused 
with  the  notions  of  cause  and  effect,  ought  we  not  to  recognize  that  it  is 
mere  misconception  to  charge  the  parallelist  with  the  misdemeanor 
of  making  the  mind  inactive? 

When  is  a  man  active  ?  When  does  he  do  something  ?  Is  it 
not  when  mental  phenomenon  and  physical  fact  stand  in  the  rela- 
tion of  plan  and  accomplishment  ?  Can  anything  be  active  save 
as  it  has  a  mind  ?  We  have  seen  that  the  word  has  no  meaning 
in  the  realm  of  the  purely  physical ;  and  a  little  reflection  makes 
it  plain  that  when  men  use  it  in  speaking  of  material  things  they 
are  employing  a  conception  borrowed  from  a  different  sphere. 
There  is  a  tincture  of  animism  in  common  thought,  and  from  this 
even  the  philosopher  finds  it  difficult  to  free  himself.  Physical 
causes  can  be  regarded  as  active  only  when  they  are  more  or  less 
dimly  conceived  as  endowed  with  minds. 

The  truth  is  that  the  phenomena  of  our  universe  can  be  con- 
templated from  more  than  one  point  of  view.  One  may  fix  one's 
attention  upon  the  order  of  physical  causes  and  effects,  and  note 
that  mental  phenomena  stand  to  certain  of  these  in  a  relation 
conveniently  symbolized  under  the  figure  employed  by  the  paral- 
lelist. But  any  given  mental  phenomenon  is  not  to  be  assumed 
to  stand  only  in  relation  to  the  particular  physical  occurrence  to 
which  the  physiologist  directly  refers  it.  Ideas  are,  through 
brains,  related  to  the  whole  physical  and  mental  universe ;  and, 
when  these  relations  are  taken  into  account,  a  new  world  of  dis- 
tinctions has  its  birth.  This  is  the  moral  world  of  aspirations,  of 
purposes,  and  of  ends.  Nothing  that  the  parallelist  can  say  should 
be  construed  as  an  attack  upon  it.  Nothing  for  which  our  expe- 
rience vouches  is  more  real  and  undeniable.  It  is  an  aspect  of  the 
one  real  world  consisting  of  matter  and  of  mind  —  it  is  as  real  as 
is  that  world  ;  and  he  who  desires  something  more  real  is  capable 
of  crying  for  what  is  rounder  than  the  circle. 

Thus,  all  those  experiences  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  char- 
acterizing as  instances  of  the  action  of  mind  upon  matter,  and  of 
one  mind  upon  another  mind  stand  unshaken.  Men  form  plans, 
and  carry  them  out  in  action.  They  set  before  themselves  ends, 
and  they  attain  them.  They  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the  exist- 
ence of  other  minds,  and  they  communicate  with  such  minds. 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  547 

Minds  are  not  epi-phenomena,  they  are  not  shadows,  they  are  not 
otiose.  All  these  things  the  parallelist  not  only  may  say,  but  must 
say,  if  he  be  a  good  parallelist,  and  understands  the  significance 
of  his  own  doctrine. 

It  is  necessary  that  I  should  emphasize  one  point  before  bring- 
ing this  chapter  to  a  close.  It  has  been  pointed  out  above  that  an 
end  is  different  from  a  mere  result  in  that  it  is  a  phenomenon 
referred,  not  merely  to  antecedent  physical  phenomena,  but  to  an 
idea.  1  beg  the  reader  to  observe  that  I  have  used  the  word  "  idea  " 
in  no  equivocal  sense.  I  have  been  at  great  pains  to  point  out 
what  we  mean  by  ideas  or  mental  phenomena,  and  how  we  are  to 
conceive  of  the  relation  between  mental  phenomena  and  the  mate- 
rial world.1  I  have  indicated  that  an  unconscious  idea  is  an 
absurdity.2  It  follows  that  the  recognition  of  ends  in  nature 
must  always  imply  the  recognition  of  consciousness  somewhere. 

To  this  some  will  demur.  Has  not  the  philosopher  maintained 
again  and  again  that  nature  may  seek  and  attain  her  ends  uncon- 
sciously —  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  immanent  finality 
which  does  not  imply  consciousness  ?  When  a  mutilated  newt 
reproduces  its  curtailed  member  and  grows  once  more  into  the 
form  proper  to  a  creature  of  its  kind,  we  have  what  appears  to  be 
the  carrying  out  of  a  plan  or  purpose,  the  realization  of  an  inten- 
tion. To  suppose  the  batrachian  mind  capable  of  such  deliberate 
foresight  that  the  result  may  be  attributed  to  it  as  its  end  seems 
absurd.  No  one  supposes  that  the  creature  plans  and  attains  as 
man  plans  and  attains  when  he  carves  a  statue  or  builds  a  house. 
It  does  not  seem,  then,  that  what  undoubtedly  appears  to  be  an 
end,  can  be  referred  to  the  consciousness  of  the  animal  itself. 
And  if  a  man  cannot  see  his  way  clear  to  accepting  the  belief  in  a 
Divine  Mind,  must  he,  on  that  account,  deny  that  a  plan  is  real- 
ized, that  an  end  is  attained  ?  Are  not  the  facts  such  as  to  'war- 
rant him  in  asserting  that  Nature  is  seeking  the  reproduction  of 
a  type,  and  unconsciously  strives  to  attain  an  end  ? 

To  this  I  answer  as  follows  :  He  who  says  that  Nature  seeks 
or  that  Nature  strives  is  using  expressions  which  find  their  signifi- 
cance in  a  world  not  purely  physical.  If  they  are  carried  over  to 
the  merely  material,  it  is  by  way  of  metaphor,  and  one  must  not 
be  misled  by  one's  metaphors.  A  man  raises  his  gun  and  a  bullet 
reaches  the  target.  We  relate  this  result  as  end  to  an  idea  in 
i  Chapters  XXIII  and  XXIV.  2  Chapter  XXX. 


548  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

his  mind.  It  is,  however,  but  one  out  of  an  indefinite  series  of 
physical  consequences  which  follow  the  pulling  of  the  trigger. 
The  man  who  fired  the  gun  may  be  charged  with  producing  the 
whole  series,  if  he  may  be  charged  with  producing  a  single  mem- 
ber. Can  we  say  he  sought  to  produce  the  series  ?  Was  it  his 
purpose  to  have  the  bullet  pass  through  a  spot  three  metres  in 
front  of  the  target,  two  metres  in  front,  one  metre  in  front  ?  Did 
he  aim  to  heat  the  target  by  the  impact  of  the  bullet,  or  to  stir  the 
air  which  lay  in  its  path  ?  It  is  absurd  to  say  that  he  sought  to 
do  these  things  ;  these  are  results,  not  ends.  In  the  whole  physi- 
cal series  we  find  but  one  term  which  may  properly  be  called  an 
end.  It  is  the  one  term  which  is  represented  in  his  mind  by  an 
idea  ;  the  term  which  stands  to  that  idea  in  the  relation  of  accom- 
plishment to  plan.  It  is  this  relation,  and  this  relation  alone,  that 
distinguishes  this  term  from  all  the  rest,  and  that  gives  it  a  claim 
upon  the  attention  of  the  ethical  philosopher,  as  well  as  upon  that 
of  the  physicist. 

If  we  overlook  this  relation,  this  term  becomes  at  once  as 
insignificant  as  the  most  insignificant  of  those  which  have  pre- 
ceded it  or  of  those  which  may  follow  it  to  the  end  of  time.  It  is 
useless  to  attempt  to  define  an  end  in  any  other  way  than  by  a 
reference  to  this  relation.  Every  physical  fact  is  predetermined 
by  the  physical  causes  which  have  produced  it,  and  the  number  of 
concurrent  causes  which  have  a  share  in  the  result  may  be  enor- 
mous. If  a  given  fact  recurs  repeatedly,  and  if  a  multitude  of 
distinct  causes  appear  to  be  concerned  in  its  production,  it  is  absurd 
to  attribute  the  constantly  recurring  fact  to  "  chance."  But  when 
we  say  all  this,  we  have  not  shown  that  the  fact  is  to  be  regarded 
as  an  end.  Death  and  dissolution  are  as  universal  as  birth  and 
growth,  but  men  do  not  incline  to  regard  death  and  dissolution  as 
the  end  of  the  development  of  the  organism.  Some  facts  they 
tend  to  look  upon  as  ends,  and  some  they  do  not.  It  is  only  from 
one  point  of  view  that  their  principle  of  selection  becomes  intel- 
ligible. 

As  I  have  said  earlier  in  this  chapter,  I  am  not  now  concerned 
with  the  scope  of  the  argument  which  passes  from  purpose  and  end 
as  revealed  in  the  realm  of  human  activities  to  purpose  and  end 
as  revealed  throughout  the  realm  of  nature.  That  men  do  follow 
the  thread  of  analogy,  and  interpret  nature  after  a  fashion  sug- 
gested by  their  knowledge  of  man,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  They 


Mechanism  and  Teleology  549 

carry  over  to  a  broader  field  the  conceptions  of  purpose  and  of  end. 
And  I  beg  the  reader  to  observe  that  he  who  speaks  of  nature  as 
seeking  her  ends  unconsciously  is  at  once  admitting  and  denying 
this  analogy.  If  a  given  physical  fact  beyond  the  realm  of  human 
activities  bears  to  the  facts  which  lie  within  that  realm  a  sufficiently 
close  analogy  to  warrant  us  in  regarding  it  as  an  end,  it  is  a  fact 
which  we  are  warranted  in  referring  to  an  idea,  to  consciousness. 
To  retain  the  notion  of  end  and  throw  away  the  notion  of  purpose 
is  to  retain  the  notion  of  below  and  throw  away  the  notion  of  above. 
One  cannot  blow  hot  and  cold  in  this  fashion.  It  is  quite  permis- 
sible to  declare  the  supposed  analogy  a  false  one  ;  but  then  one 
must  abandon  the  conception  of  end  as  well  as  that  of  purpose. 

I  hope  I  have  succeeded  in  making  clear  in  the  preceding 
pages  that  the  world  in  which  mechanism  reigns  supreme  and  the 
moral  world  of  purposes  and  ends  are  not  and  never  need  be  at 
war  with  one  another.  It  is  not  necessary  to  shatter  the  former 
in  order  that,  upon  its  ruins,  we  may  base  the  stately  structure  of 
the  latter.  There  are  not  really  two  worlds  ;  there  is  but  one, 
and  that  one  may  be  contemplated  now  under  this  aspect,  now 
under  that.  I  should  think  this  view  of  the  case  would  be  wel- 
comed as  a  relief.  It  relieves  one  from  the  secret  hope  that  the 
labors  of  the  man  of  science  will  be  in  vain  ;  that  his  efforts  to 
prove  the  world  of  matter  and  motion  the  orderly  thing  he  sus- 
pects it  to  be  will  be  doomed  to  disappointment.  It  saves  the 
timid  man  from  the  unethical  temptation  to  rejoice  in  human 
ignorance,  and  to  regard  those  who  would  enlighten  him  as  heralds 
of  misfortune.  The  world  of  matter  and  of  motion  is  not  our 
enemy,  but  our  friend ;  we  cause  ourselves  gratuitous  unhappiness 
when  we  mistake  its  face. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 
FATALISM,  "FREE-WILL,"   AND  DETERMINISM 

LAIUS,  king  of  Thebes,  was  warned  by  an  oracle  that  there 
was  danger  to  his  throne  and  to  his  life  if  his  infant  son  were 
allowed  to  grow  up.  The  child  was  delivered  to  a  herdsman 
with  orders  for  its  destruction.  The  herdsman  pierced  its  feet, 
with  the  intention  of  exposing  it  to  the  elements  on  Mount 
Cithasron  ;  but  the  little  creature  did  not  meet  this  cruel  death  ; 
it  was  given  to  a  shepherd,  who  carried  it  to  King  Polybus  of 
Corinth,  and  by  him  the  child  was  adopted  and  called  (Edipus. 

Long  after  these  events,  CEdipus,  Avho  had  arrived  at  man's 
estate,  learned  from  an  oracle  that  he  was  destined  to  kill  his 
father.  He  left  the  kingdom  of  his  reputed  father,  Polybus.  In 
a  narrow  way  he  met  Lams,  who,  with  an  attendant,  was  driving 
to  Delphi.  OEdipus  refused  the  supposed  stranger  the  right  of 
way,  and  the  king's  attendant  retaliated  by  killing  one  of  his 
horses.  CEdipus,  furious  at  the  deed,  slew  both  master  and  man. 
Thus  did  La'ius  and  Q^dipus,  puppets  in  the  hand  of  a  higher 
power,  fulfil  the  oracles  against  which  they  had  risen  in  rebellion. 

The  story  stands  as  an  admirable  illustration  of  the  fatalist's 
view  of  things.  Certain  ends  are  fixed  ;  they  will  be  brought 
about,  whatever  may  happen.  We  know  that  if  CEdipus  had 
taken  another  road,  he  would  still  have  met  Lams  sooner  or  later. 
The  man  was  doomed ;  his  death  was  a  thing  allotted  ^ei/^ap^evrj^) ; 
it  was  predicted  (fatum). 

In  the  Greek  literature  we  find  two  conceptions  of  fate.  "  On 
the  one  hand,  Fate  was  a  decree,  dependent  for  its  effectiveness 
upon  the  divine  will.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  personified,  and 
conceived  of  as  an  independent  principle  controlling  the  acts  of 
gods  and  of  men."1  In  the  "Iliad,"  for  example,  success  and 
failure  of  Greek  and  Trojan  are  represented  as  decided,  not  by 

1  See  Alexander's  "Theories  of  the  Will  in  the  History  of  Philosophy,"  X.Y 
1898,  pp.  8  ff. 

550 


Fatalism,  "Free-will"  and  Determinism  551 

the  actors  on  the  stage,  but  by  a  power  behind  the  scenes.  Given 
a  god  who  has  made  up  his  mind  to  save  Hector  or  Achilles  at  all 
costs,  the  independent  actions  of  Hector  and  Achilles  become  of 
little  significance.  The  struggle  is  really  a  struggle  between 
protecting  divinities,  and  the  decision  of  Zeus  appears  to  be  the 
final  court  of  appeal.  However,  this  court  cannot  be  regarded 
as  ultimate  in  every  instance.  When  Zeus  is  asked  to  save 
Sarpedon,  he  refuses  on  the  ground  that  his  death  is  fixed  by 
Fate. 

The  conception  of  Fate  is  not  necessarily  an  irreligious  one. 
Whether  Sarpedon  be  doomed  by  Zeus  or  by  some  power  above 
Zeus,  we  have  fatalism,  provided  only  the  agency  of  Sarpedon 
himself  and  of  his  fellow-actors  be  regarded  as  having  no  real 
bearing  upon  the  result.  To  the  Stoic  el^ap^evi]  was  identical 
with  irpdvota  or  Divine  Providence.  The  fatum  mohametanum 
which  Christians  have  condemned  in  Moslems  is  anything  but 
an  irreligious  doctrine.  It  is  but  an  insistence  upon  the  fixity 
of  the  Divine  Decrees.  And  although  we  are  not  accustomed  to 
use  the  word  "  fatalism  "  in  speaking  of  the  doctrine  of  the  election 
of  the  individual  soul  which  has  obtained  in  the  Christian  Church, 
we  are  compelled  to  admit  that  some  of  the  forms  which  it  has 
taken  in  the  past  make  of  the  doctrine  of  predestination  nothing 
less  than  a  fatalism. 

Thus,  Augustine  tells  us  that  comparatively  few  men  are  to 
be  saved.  Much  the  larger  part  of  humanity  will  be  damned  : 
u praedestinati  sunt  in  aeternum  ignem  ire  cum  diabolo."  For 
these  Christ  did  not  die  ;  and  did  the  Church  know  who  they 
are,  it  would  not  pray  for  them.  They  have  never  been  in  a 
position  to  choose  the  good,  for  the  free-will  granted  to  Adam 
was  lost  in  the  first  sin,  and  lost  for  all.  Since  then,  men  have 
been  free  to  do  wrong,  but  not  free  to  do  right.  The  elect  have 
been  chosen  as  subjects  to  exhibit  God's  mercy,  and  the  others 
have  been  made  examples  of  God's  justice.  Shall  not  the  potter 
make  of  the  clay  what  he  will  ?  He  has  a  perfect  right  to  throw 
away  the  whole  lump,  and  we  should  be  devoutly  thankful  that 
it  has  pleased  him  to  save  some. 

Of  course,  the  doctrine  of  predestination  may  be  so  expressed 
as  not  to  be  a  fatalism  at  all.  It  may  recognize  that  the  will  of 
the  individual  is  not  without  some  share  in  the  event  which 
absorbs  its  attention.  It  may  be  a  determinism,  that  is  to  say; 


552  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

and  what  it  means  to  be  a  determinism  I  shall  set  forth  a  little 
later.  But  here  I  wish  to  insist  that  the  peculiar  way  of  looking 
at  things  which  characterizes  the  fatalist  does  not  belong  by 
prescriptive  right  to  the  irreligious  man,  to  the  pagan,  to  the 
Moslem,  or  to  the  Christian.  A  man  belonging  to  any  one  of 
these  classes,  may,  if  he  be  sufficiently  unwise,  become  a  fatalist. 
He  may  dislike  the  word,  and  may  avoid  its  use,  except  when  he 
is  speaking  of  men  who  hold  opinions  which  he  strongly  repro- 
bates. And  yet,  when  we  examine  his  thought,  we  may  see  that 
what  separates  him  from  the  objects  of  his  disapproval  is  not  their 
fatalism,  but  certain  other  convictions  which  have  no  necessary 
connection  with  it.  It  is  well  to  remember  that  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible to  be  a  fatalist  without  believing  in  a  blind  fate,  and  without 
frothing  about  one's  "star"  or  one's  "destiny." 

To  be  a  fatalist  it  is  only  necessary  to  regard  ends  as  fixed, 
while  holding  that  the  means,  which  might  be  expected  to  lead  to 
their  realization,  are  a  matter  of  indifference.  Fatalism  empha- 
sizes the  helplessness  of  man,  and  maintains  that  his  lot  is  deter- 
mined independently  of  his  own  action.  The  oracle  predicts  that 
QEdipus  will  be  the  death  of  Lams,  but  nothing  is  said  of  the  way 
in  which  that  disaster  will  be  ushered  into  existence.  The  whole 
story  leaves  us  with  the  impression  that  neither  of  the  actors  in 
the  tragedy  is  really  an  actor  —  that  neither  contributes  to  a  result 
which  is  fixed  quite  independently  of  all  he  may  elect  to  do. 
Mohammed  exhorts  his  followers  to  fight  bravely,  assuring  them 
that  "  no  soul  can  die  except  by  permission  of  God,  and  according 
to  what  is  written  in  the  book  that  contains  the  determinations  of 
things."  1  This  gives  the  lie  to  the  proverb  that  he  who  fights 
and  runs  away  may  live  to  fight  another  day.  It  places  the  war- 
rior and  the  stay-at-home  upon  the  same  basis,  and  utterly  con- 
demns all  modern  methods  of  life  insurance.  There  is  no  danger 
in  going  to  war,  for  what  mortal  can  render  untrue  what  is  writ- 
ten in  the  book  which  contains  the  determinations  of  things? 
And  as  for  Augustine,  some  passages  from  his  pen  arouse  in  the 
reader  a  certain  wonder  that  their  author  could  have  regarded  it 
as  at  all  necessary  for  either  elect  or  non-elect  to  feel  any  sense 
of  responsibility  touching  an  event  so  palpably  beyond  man's 
jurisdiction.2 

1  Koran,  Chapter  III. 

2  E.g.  "The  City  of  God,"  XXI,  12,  24;  "  Encheiridion,"  98,  99. 


Fatalism,  "  Free-will,"  and  Determinism  553 

The  influences  that  have  inclined  men  to  fatalism  are  not  diffi- 
cult to  trace.  Primitive  man  has  necessarily  forced  upon  his 
attention  the  fact  that  a  vast  number  of  things  occur  in  nature 
over  which  he  has  no  control  whatever.  The  wind,  the  rain,  the 
inundation,  the  earthquake,  the  drought  that  parches  his  crops, 
the  dread  visitations  of  disease  —  before  these  and  such  as  these 
he  is  as  a  straw  on  the  surface  of  a  stream,  or  as  a  flying  leaf. 
He  must  accept  what  is  allotted  to  him,  and  good  or  evil  fortune 
comes  down  upon  him  independently  of  his  own  exertions.  With 
progressive  enlightenment  his  horizon  widens,  and  his  helplessness 
undergoes  some  diminution.  But,  however  far  man  may  progress, 
his  condition  is  always  such  as  to  keep  him  mindful  of  the  fact 
that  the  course  of  his  life  is,  at  least  in  large  part,  decided  for  him 
by  something  external  to  himself. 

The  emphasis  laid  upon  this  varies  with  individuals  and  with 
communities.  Individual  temperament,  social  characteristics, 
institutions,  traditions,  all  make  their  influence  felt.  The  trend 
to  fatalism  remains  the  same  in  men  of  a  certain  type,  even  when 
their  views  of  nature  differ  widely.  One  may  be  so  impressed  by 
the  conception  of  the  Mechanism  of  the  Universe  as  to  refuse  to 
man  his  rightful  place  in  the  world.  On  the  other  hand,  one 
may  be  so  penetrated  with  the  conviction  of  the  Majestj7"  of  God, 
that  a  human  unit  becomes  to  one  scarcely  a  thing  to  take  into 
account.  Atheist  and  theist  alike  may  exaggerate  the  impotence 
of  man,  and  many  dissociate  end  and  means  in  an  unreasonable 
fashion.  Man  is  weak  ;  he  is  a  speck  in  the  illimitable  system  of 
the  universe  ;  but  he  exists  and  he  acts  nevertheless.  It  is  not 
fatalism  to  recognize  that  his  sphere  of  action  is  limited ;  it  is 
fatalism  to  deny  that  he  has  a  hand  in  those  things  for  which 
experience  seems  to  show  that  he  is,  at  least  in  part,  responsible. 
We  may  freely  admit  that  our  utmost  efforts  will  not  prevent  the 
moon  from  circling  around  the  earth  as  she  always  does  ;  but  if 
we  maintain  that  the  actions  of  CEdipus  and  the  actions  of  Lams 
have  no  bearing  upon  the  lot  of  (Edipus  and  of  Lams  we  talk 
nonsense. 

Thus,  it  is  by  no  means  an  inexplicable  thing  that  men  should 
become  fatalists.  But  it  is  clear  that  fatalism  is  an  unreasonable 
doctrine,  and  that  the  dissociation  of  end  and  means  characteristic 
of  it  indicates  a  very  imperfect  comprehension  of  the  world-order 
of  efficient  causes  and  effects.  The  fatalist  does  not  make  every- 


554  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

thing  a  predetermined  end  ;  he  selects  what  seems  to  him  important, 
and  he  leaves  at  loose  ends  what  seems  insignificant.  The  death 
of  Lams  was  predicted  by  the  oracle.  Lams  was  a  king,  and  wor- 
thy of  such  honor  ;  but  the  servant  and  the  horse  seem  to  have  lost 
their  lives  accidentally.  The  encouragement  to  fight  bravely,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  "  no  soul  can  die  except  by  permission  of 
God,  and  according  to  what  is  written  in  the  book  that  contains 
the  determinations  of  things,"  must  emanate  from  and  be  addressed 
to  an  illogical  mind.  If  it  be  true  that  each  death  is  thus  recorded 
in  advance,  it  is  not  worth  while  to  fight  at  all,  for  one  cannot  by 
fighting  hasten  the  death  of  a  single  enemy.  Only  he  who  arbi- 
trarily enters  certain  names  in  that  book,  and  forgets  to  enter 
others,  can  take  any  comfort  in  the  exhortation. 

Fatalism  is,  thus,  a  thoroughly  unreasonable  doctrine.  In  the 
stream  of  things  it  isolates  this  fact  or  that  and  makes  it  indepen- 
dent of  its  setting.  From  the  point  of  view  of  ethics  the  doctrine 
is  strongly  to  be  condemned.  He  who  proclaims  that  ends  are 
fixed  independently  of  means  does  all  that  in  him  lies  to  paralyze 
the  energies  of  his  hearer.  It  is  quite  true  that  men  imbued  with 
fatalistic  beliefs  have  at  times  acted  with  desperate  energy,  but 
this  only  means  that  men  have  at  times  been  desperately  illogical. 
Their  doctrine  is  an  absurd  one,  and  its  influence  cannot  but  be 
harmful  in  the  long  run. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  remember  that  fatalism  is  not 
a  scientific  doctrine.  An  insistence  upon  this  point  is  the  more 
necessary  in  view  of  the  fact  that  a  multitude  of  persons  confuse 
fatalism  with  determinism.  But  fatalism  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
ignorant  and  superstitious  man,  who  has  not  yet  risen  to  the  concep- 
tion of  a  world-order.  It  is  just  his  arbitrary  view  of  things  that 
it  is  the  concern  of  the  man  of  science  to  abolish  in  favor  of  some- 
thing more  enlightened. 

So  much  for  fatalism.  Now  let  us  examine  the  doctrine 
which  we  usually  find  contrasted  with  it,  the  doctrine  of 
"free-will." 

Democritus  of  Abdera  had  taught  that  the  elements  of  the 
world  are  atoms  and  void  space.  The  atoms  differ  from  each 
other  in  size,  shape,  and  position,  and  they  are  in  motion.  Void 
space,  atoms,  and  motion  are  eternal  ;  there  is  no  chance,  nothing 
happens  without  a  cause  ;  the  clash  of  the  atoms  has  resulted  neces- 
sarily in  vortices  which  have  grown  into  worlds.  Perhaps  Democ- 


Fatalism,  " Free-will"  and  Determinism  555 

ritus  taught  that  the  original  motion  of  the  atoms  was  a  fall  through 
space,  and  that  the  larger  and  heavier,  falling  more  rapidly  than 
the  others,  drove  them  to  the  collisions  which  had  this  happy  result, 
but  there  is  some  uncertainty  upon  this  point. 

The  atomistic  doctrine  was  taken  up  and  somewhat  modified  by 
Epicurus,  the  father  of  such  as  believe  in  "free-will."  How  he 
conceived  a  rain  of  atoms  and  the  origination  of  a  world  is  vividly 
set  before  us  by  his  disciple  Lucretius  :  — 

"  When  bodies  are  borne  downwards  sheer  through  void  by 
their  own  weights,  at  quite  uncertain  times  and  uncertain  spots 
they  push  themselves  a  little  from  their  course  :  you  just  and  only 
just  can  call  it  a  change  of  inclination.  If  they  were  not  used  to 
swerve,  they  would  all  fall  down,  like  drops  of  rain,  through  the 
deep  void,  and  no  clashing  would  have  been  begotten  nor  blow 
produced  among  the  first-beginnings :  1  thus  nature  never  would 
have  produced  aught. 

"  But  if  haply  any  one  believes  that  heavier  bodies,  as  they  are 
carried  more  quickly  sheer  through  space,  can  fall  from  above  on 
the  lighter  and  so  beget  blows  able  to  produce  begetting  motions, 
he  goes  most  widely  astray  from  true  reason.  For  whenever 
bodies  fall  through  water  and  thin  air,  they  must  quicken  their 
descents  in  proportion  to  their  weights,  because,  the  body  of 
water  and  subtle  nature  of  air  cannot  retard  everything  in  equal 
degree,  but  more  readily  give  way,  overpowered  by  the  heavier  : 
on  the  other  hand  empty  void  cannot  offer  resistance  to  anything 
in  any  direction  at  any  time,  but  must,  as  its  nature  craves,  con- 
tinually give  way  ;  and  for  this  reason  all  things  must  be  moved 
and  borne  along  with  equal  velocity  though  of  unequal  weights 
through  the  unresisting  void.  Therefore  heavier  things  will 
never  be  able  to  fall  from  above  on  lighter  nor  of  themselves  to 
beget  blows  sufficient  to  produce  the  varied  motions  by  which 
nature  carries  on  things.  Wherefore  again  and  again  I  say 
bodies  must  swerve  a  little  ;  and  yet  not  more  than  the  least 
possible ;  lest  we  be  found  to  be  imagining  oblique  motions  and 
this  the  reality  should  refute.  For  this  we  see  to  be  plain  and 
evident,  that  weights,  so  far  as  in  them  is,  cannot  travel  obliquely, 
when  they  fall  from  above,  at  least  as  far  as  you  can  perceive ; 
but  that  nothing  swerves  in  any  case  from  the  straight  course, 
who  is  there  that  can  perceive  ? 

1  I.e.  the  atoms. 


556  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

"  Again  if  all  motion  is  ever  linked  together  and  a  new  motion 
ever  springs  from  another  in  a  fixed  order  and  first-beginnings  do 
not  by  swerving  make  some  commencement  of  motion  to  break 
through  the  decrees  of  fate,  that  cause  follow  not  cause  from 
everlasting,  whence  have  all  living  creatures  here  on  earth  — 
whence,  I  ask,  has  been  wrested  from  the  fates  the  power  by 
which  we  go  forward  whither  the  will  leads  each,  by  which  like- 
wise we  change  the  direction  of  our  motions  neither  at  a  fixed 
time  nor  fixed  place,  but  when  and  where  the  mind  itself  has 
prompted?  For  beyond  a  doubt  in  these  things  his  own  will 
makes  for  each  a  beginning  and  from  this  beginning  motions  are 
welled  through  the  limbs.  See  you  not  too,  when  the  barriers 
are  thrown  open  at  a  given  moment,  that  yet  the  eager  powers  of 
the  horses  cannot  start  forward  so  instantaneously  as  the  mind 
itself  desires  ?  the  whole  store  of  matter  through  the  whole  body 
must  be  sought  out,  in  order  that  stirred  up  through  all  the 
frame  it  may  follow  with  undivided  effort  the  bent  of  the  mind  ; 
so  that  you  see  the  beginning  of  motion  is  born  from  the  heart, 
and  the  action  first  commences  in  the  will  of  the  mind  and  next 
is  transmitted  through  the  whole  body  and  frame.  Quite  differ- 
ent is  the  case  when  we  move  on  propelled  by  a  stroke  inflicted  by 
the  strong  might  and  strong  compulsion  of  another  ;  for  then  it 
is  quite  clear  that  all  the  matter  of  the  whole  body  moves  and  is 
hurried  on  against  our  inclination  until  the  will  has  reined  it  in 
throughout  the  limbs.  Do  you  see  then  in  this  case  that,  though 
an  outward  force  often  pushes  men  on  and  compels  them  fre- 
quently to  advance  against  their  will  and  to  be  hurried  headlong 
on,  there  yet  is  something  in  our  breast  sufficient  to  struggle 
against  and  resist  it  ?  And  when  too  this  something  chooses,  the 
store  of  matter  is  compelled  sometimes  to  change  its  course 
through  the  limbs  and  frame,  and  after  it  has  been  forced  for- 
ward, is  reined  in  and  settles  back  into  its  place.  Wherefore  in 
seeds  1  too  you  must  admit  the  same,  admit  that  besides  blows  and 
weights  there  is  another  cause  of  motions,  from  which  this  power 
of  free  action  has  been  begotten  in  us,  since  we  see  that  nothing 
can  come  from  nothing.  For  weight  forbids  that  all  things  be 
done  by  blows  through  as  it  were  an  outward  force  ;  but  that  the 
mind  itself  does  not  feel  an  internal  necessity  in  all  its  actions 
and  is  not  as  it  were  overmastered  and  compelled  to  bear  and  put 

1  I.e.  the  atoms. 


Fatalism)  "Free-will,"  and  Determinism  557 

up  with  this,  is  caused  by  a  minute  swerving  of  first-beginnings 
at  no  fixed  part  of  space  and  no  fixed  time."1 

One  cannot  do  better  than  to  take  a  good  look  at  the  "  free- 
will "  doctrine  in  its  primitive  form.  It  is  well  to  do  so  for  more 
than  one  reason. 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  help  one  to  realize  how  erroneous  is 
the  current  notion  that  this  doctrine  has  some  natural  connection 
with  religion  and  good  morals,  and  that  they  may  be  expected  to 
be  found  in  conjunction.  When  Stoic  and  Epicurean  are  placed 
in  contrast,  it  is  certainly  not  to  the  advantage  of  the  latter.  And 
surely  no  man  can  regard  Augustine  as  less  religious  than  Pela- 
gius  ;  St.  Thomas  as  less  religious  than  Duns  Scotus,  Luther  as 
less  religious  than  Erasmus,  and  Jansenius  as  less  religious  than 
his  Jesuit  opponents.  A  glance  at  the  history  of  human  thought 
tempts  one  to  maintain  that  men  of  strong  religious  feeling  are 
less  likely  to  become  "  free-willists "  than  other  men.  Their 
peculiar  danger  appears  to  be  a  lapse  into  some  sort  of  fatalism. 
We  are  all  more  or  less  inclined  to  think  that  doctrines  which  we 
happen  to  find  in  conjunction  in  our  own  day  have  a  natural  affin- 
ity for  one  another.  The  study  of  the  history  of  philosophy 
serves  to  correct  such  hasty  inductions. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  a  good  thing  to  read  Lucretius, 
because  we  find  portrayed  in  bold  outline  what  is  really  character- 
istic of  the  "  free-will  "  doctrine  —  what  differentiates  it  from 
fatalism  and  from  determinism.  The  poet  points  out  that  every 
motion  must  be  regarded  as  springing  from  another  motion  in  a 
fixed  order,  and  cause  be  regarded  as  following  cause  from  ever- 
lasting, unless  we  assume  somewhere  a  commencement  of  motions 
—  not  a  relative  commencement,  a  transformation,  but  an  abso- 
lute commencement,  a  causeless  origination.  A  number  of  such 
causeless  originations  he  discovers  in  the  voluntary  motions  of 
man  and  brute,  and  he  extends  the  notion  of  "  free-will "  so 
as  to  make  it  cover  the  erratic  behavior  of  falling  atoms.  This 
behavior  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  a  reference  to  the  order 
of  causes ;  it  implies  a  break  in  the  causal  nexus  — "  at  quite 
uncertain  times  and  uncertain  spots  they  push  themselves  a 
little  from  their  course."  If  we  assume  a  cause  for  each  par- 
ticular push,  we  are  not  freed  from  what  Lucretius  errone- 
ously regards  as  "the  decrees  of  fate,"  for  the  causal  nexus 
1  "  De  Rerum  Natura,"  II,  217-293  ;  tr.  Munro,  Cambridge,  1891. 


558  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

remains  unbroken.  The  push  must  be  uncaused,  if  we  are  to 
have  "free-will." 

The  attribution  of  "  free-will "  to  atoms  generally  was  natural 
enough  in  one  who  regarded  the  whole  soul  as  composed  of  atoms. 
This  part  of  the  Lucretian  doctrine  strikes  the  modern  reader  as 
bizarre.  And  if  he  be  clear-minded,  the  modern  reader  will 
criticise  Lucretius  on  two  other  points  as  well  :  he  will  remark 
that  it  is  a  palpable  inconsistency  to  make  certain  motions  cause- 
less, and  then  to  erect  their  very  causelessness,  i.e.  "free-will," 
into  a  cause  of  their  origination,  on  the  ground  that  "  nothing  can 
come  from  nothing";  and  he  will  point  out  that  it  is  only  an 
imperfect  apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  fatalism  that  can  regard 
the  denial  of  "  free-will "  as  a  surrender  to  "  the  decrees  of  fate." 

It  is  doubtful  whether  most  "  free-willists  "  will  feel  impelled 
to  urge  these  objections,  for  both  of  these  errors  have  enjoyed 
a  high  degree  of  popularity  for  a  very  long  time,  and  their  popu- 
larity appears  to  be  undiminished.  Discussions  touching  the 
freedom  of  the  will  constantly  show  a  tendency  to  lapse  into  a 
sponge  of  words  in  which  all  clear  distinctions  disappear.  One 
thing  is  done  by  Lucretius,  which,  I  feel  safe  in  saying,  will  be 
warmly  approved  by  almost  all  "  free-willists  ";  he  carefully  limits 
the  amount  of  "  free-will "  that  anything  may  be  permitted  to 
enjoy.  Bodies  may  only  push  themselves  a  little  from  their 
course  :  "  You  just  and  only  just  can  call  it  a  change  of  inclina- 
tion." Too  much  "free-will"  can  cause  the  " f ree-willist  "  noth- 
ing save  alarm  and  apprehension.  That  there  is  good  reason  for 
his  uneasiness,  I  shall  show  a  little  farther  on. 

Before  going  farther  I  must  enter  into  a  brief  explanation 
for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  verbal  misunderstanding.  I  have 
shown  l  that  mental  phenomena  must  not  be  regarded  as  standing 
in  the  one  causal  nexus  with  physical  phenomena,  and  that  no 
mental  fact  should  be  viewed  as,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word, 
the  cause  of  a  motion  in  matter.  I  have  also  pointed  out2  that 
the  acceptance  of  this  truth  does  not  in  the  least  compel  one  to 
repudiate  the  conceptions  of  purpose  and  end,  to  declare  the 
mind  inactive,  and  to  regard  as  an  illusion  human  responsibility. 

I  have  furthermore  laid  much  emphasis  upon  the  fact  that 
ordinary  modes  of  speech  convey  truth,  and  are  not  lightly  to  be 
cast  aside.  One  may  use  them  ;  in  most  instances  it  is  desirable 
1  Chapter  XXXI.  2  Chapter  XXXII. 


Fatalism,  "Free-willy"  and  Determinism  559 

to  use  them  ;  but  one  must  be  careful  not  to  be  misled  by  them. 
We  expect  even  the  man  of  science  to  say  that  he  climbed  the 
Rigi  to  see  the  sun  rise,  and  we  would  think  it  highly  unreasonable 
to  regard  his  words  as  proof  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the  revolution 
of  the  earth  upon  its  axis.  And  the  most  thoroughgoing  of 
parallelists  may  say:  The  first  time  I  sat  down  it  was  because 
I  slipped  ;  the  second  time,  it  was  because  I  willed  to  do  so. 
This  does  not  mean  that  he  is  abandoning  his  parallelism  and 
making  a  mental  phenomenon  the  cause  of  a  bodily  motion.  He 
can  answer  at  once,  when  he  is  taxed  with  inconsistency,  that  the 
cause,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  is  not  the  mental  phenome- 
non, but  some  change  in  the  brain  to  which  the  mental  phenome- 
non is  referred  as  an  invariable  concomitant.  He  may  claim 
that  he  has  a  perfect  right  to  use  expressions  in  ordinary  use, 
without  translating  them  into  parallelistic  language,  so  long  as 
nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  such  a  translation.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  he  has  no  right  to  use  any  expression  that  is  incapa- 
ble of  such  a  translation. 

I  say  all  this  because  I  am  resolved  to  make  use  in  this  chap- 
ter of  the  common  modes  of  speech,  and  to  avoid  emphasizing 
the  doctrine  of  parallelism.  This  I  do  for  two  reasons  :  first,  it 
is  convenient  to  speak  as  the  plain  man  speaks,  and,  second,  it  is 
desirable  that  the  reader  should  realize  that  the  choice  between 
fatalism,  "  free-will,"  and  determinism  is  in  no  way  logically 
conditioned  by  one's  choice  of  parallelism  or  of  the  opposing 
doctrine. 

The  parallelist  may  be  a  fatalist,  a  "  free-willist,"  or  a 
determinist  ;  so  may  his  opponent.  To  be  a  "free-willist"  each 
has  only  to  deny,  with  Lucretius,  that  "  all  motion  is  ever  linked 
together  and  a  new  motion  ever  springs  from  another  in  a  fixed 
order."  Each  may  claim  that  "his  own  will  makes  for  each  a 
beginning  and  from  this  beginning  motions  are  welled  through 
the  limbs."  All  that  is  necessary  is  the  insistence  upon  breaks 
in  the  causal  nexus;  both  may  agree  in  this,  while  one  regards 
the  causal  nexus  as  composed  of  a  mixture  of  physical  and 
mental  phenomena,  and  the  other  regards  it  as  composed  of 
physical  phenomena  alone,  to  which  mental  phenomena  stand  in 
a  peculiar  relation  that  cannot  properly  be  called  causal.  The 
former  will  regard  the  volition  which,  according  to  Lucretius, 
"  makes  for  each  a  beginning,"  as  the  first  term  in  a  certain  causal 


560  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

series  ;  the  latter  will  make  the  concomitant  brain-change  the 
first  term  in  the  same  series,  and  shift  the  volition  to  a  parallel 
line,  through  a  repugnance  to  materializing  mind.  Thus  each 
will  maintain  that  a  given  causal  series  runs  out,  when  we  follow 
it  back  to  a  certain  point ;  and  the  considerations  which  move 
each  to  embrace  such  a  doctrine  must  be  the  same.  They  are 
the  considerations  that  moved  Lucretius,  and  have  moved  men 
ever  since. 

It  was  necessary  to  say  so  much  at  this  point,  for  I  wish  the 
reader  to  feel  that  he  may  accept  the  reasonings  of  this  chapter 
without  feeling  responsible  for  what  is  said  in  the  two  chapters 
which  have  preceded.  What  is  here  said  may  be  accepted  by 
the  parallelist,  but  it  may  also  be  accepted  by  his  opponent.  We 
are  concerned  with  an  independent  question,  which  may  be 
answered  independently  and  on  its  own  merits.  With  this 
preface,  I  turn  to  a  closer  examination  of  the  "  free-will "  doc- 
trine. 

Here  I  sit  at  my  desk  ;  my  hand  is  on  the  paper  before  me  ; 
can  I  raise  it  from  the  paper  or  not,  just  as  I  please  ?  To  such 
a  question  as  this  both  the  "  free-willist "  and  his  opponent,  the 
determinist,  who  denies  that  there  are  breaks  in  the  causal  nexus, 
must  give  the  same  answer.  Of  course  I  can  raise  it  or  not,  as 
I  please.  Both  must  admit  that  I  am,  in  this  sense,  free  to  raise 
it  or  not  to  raise  it.  The  question  that  divides  them  lies  a  little 
farther  back  :  the  determinist  must  hold  that,  if  I  please  to  raise 
my  hand,  there  is  some  cause  within  me,  or  in  my  environment, 
or  both,  that  brings  about  the  result  ;  and  if  I  please  not  to  raise 
it  he  must  believe  that  there  is  some  cause  or  complex  of  causes 
that  produce  just  that  result.  He  does  not  deny  that  I  can  do 
as  I  please.  He  merely  maintains  that  my  u pleasing"  is  never 
uncaused1  and  inexplicable.  On  the  other  hand,  the  advocate  of 
the  "liberty  of  indifference,"  the  "  free-willist"-  — the  indeterminist, 
as  he  should  really  be  called  —  maintains  that,  under  precisely  the 
same  circumstances,  internal  and  external,  I  may  raise  my  hand 
or  keep  it  at  rest.  He  holds,  in  other  words,  that  if  I  move, 

1  I  beg  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind  what  has  been  said  just  above.  When  the 
parallelistic  determinist  says  one's  "pleasing  "  is  never  uncaused,  he  means  by  it  that 
the  physical  basis  of  the  mental  phenomenon  is  absolutely  determined  by  its  physi- 
cal antecedents.  But  it  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  teach  parallelism  when  he  is 
merely  discussing  the  question  whether  cause  follow  cause  "  from  everlasting." 


Fatalism,  "Free-will"  and  Determinism  561 

that  action  is  not  to  be  wholly  accounted  for  by  anything  what- 
ever that  has  preceded,  for  under  precisely  the  same  circum- 
stances it  might  not  have  occurred.  It  is,  hence,  a  causeless 
action. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  "  free-willist "  is  right,  and  that 
human  actions  may  be  causeless.  I  am,  then,  endowed  with 
"  freedom."  Is  this  a  fact  in  which  I  have  good  reason  to  glory  ? 
Let  us  see. 

One  must  not  forget  that  we  are  not  here  concerned  with 
freedom  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word,  freedom  from  external 
compulsion.  I  have  used  quotation  marks  above  to  indicate  that 
the  word  is  used  in  a  peculiar  and  technical  sense.  When  I 
assume  that  I  am  endowed  with  "  freedom  "  it  means  only  that 
my  actions  cannot  wholly  be  accounted  for  by  anything  that  has 
preceded  them,  even  by  my  own  character  and  impulses,  inherent 
or  acquired. 

Now  I  have  "  freely  "  given  a  dollar  to  a  blind  beggar.  The 
act  is  an  act  of  "  free-will "  —  it  is  causeless.  Who,  then,  gave 
the  dollar  ?  Not  I.  The  determining  cause  of  the  act  is  not  to 
be  found  in  me  ;  the  money  was  not  given  because  I  was  a  man 
of  tender  heart,  one  prone  to  benevolent  impulses,  and  naturally 
incited  by  the  sight  of  suffering  to  make  an  effort  to  relieve  it. 
Just  in  so  far  as  the  act  was  the  result  of  "  free-will,"  these  things 
could  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter.  Another  man, 
the  veriest  miser  and  skin-flint,  the  most  unfeeling  brute  upon 
the  streets,  might  equally  well  have  been  the  instrument  of  the 
benevolent  deed.  His  impulses  might  all  be  selfish,  and  his  past 
life  a  consistent  history  of  sordid  greed  ;  I  am  a  lover  of  my 
kind  ;  but  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  acts  of  "  free-will "  ?  If 
such  acts  can  spring  up  only  upon  a  grateful  soil,  they  are  not 
"free"  but  determined.  To  be  really  "free"  they  must  not  be 
conditioned  by  antecedent  circumstances  of  any  sort,  by  the  misery 
of  the  beggar,  by  the  pity  in  the  heart  of  the  passer-by.  They 
must  drop  from  a  clear  sky  out  of  the  void,  for  just  in  so  far  as 
they  can  be  accounted  for  they  are  not  "free." 

As  I  contemplate  it,  my  "  freedom  "  begins  to  take  on  a  mel- 
ancholy aspect.  It  may  manifest  itself  either  in  good  or  in  evil 
deeds  ;  who  shall  choose  which  ?  Not  I.  The  deeds  are  uncaused, 
the}-  are  not  conditioned  by  my  character.  And  since  they  are 
uncaused,  and  have  no  necessary  congruity  with  my  character  and 


562  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

impulses,  what  guarantee  have  I  that  the  course  of  my  life  will 
not  exhibit  the  unhappy  spectacle  of  the  reign  of  mere  caprice  ? 
For  forty  years  I  have  lived  quietly  and  in  obedience  to  law. 
I  am  regarded  as  a  decent  citizen,  and  one  who  can  be  counted 
upon  not  to  rob  his  neighbor,  or  to  wave  the  red  flag  of  the  anar- 
chist. I  have  grown  gradually  to  be  a  character  of  such  and  such 
a  kind  ;  I  am  fairly  familiar  with  my  impulses  and  aspirations  ; 
I  hope  to  carry  out  plans  extending  over  a  good  many  years  in 
the  future.  Who  shall  decide  for  me  what  I  shall  do  ? 

Alas,  I  am  "free."  This  I  with  whom  I  have  lived  in  the 
past  and  with  whom  I  think  I  have  some  acquaintance,  —  this  /, 
the  respectable  man  of  settled  habits,  cannot  decide  whether  I  shall 
carry  out  plans  or  break  them,  be  consistent  or  inconsistent,  love 
or  hate,  be  virtuous  or  betake  myself  to  crime.  This  I  with  whom 
I  am  familiar  cannot  condition  the  future.  But  I  will  make  the 
most  serious  of  resolves,  bind  myself  with  the  holiest  of  promises  ! 
To  what  end  ?  How  can  any  resolve  be  a  cause  of  causeless  actions, 
or  any  promise  clip  the  erratic  wing  of  "free-will"?  Could  the 
monster  be  dealt  with  in  this  way,  it  would  not  be  "  free-will." 

In  so  far  as  I  am  "  free  "  the  future  is  a  wall  of  darkness. 
One  cannot  even  say  with  the  Moslem  :  "  What  shall  be,  will 
be  ;  "  for  there  is  no  shall  about  it.  What  will  be  has  no  root 
in  what  is.  It  is  wholly  impossible  for  me  to  guess  what  I  will 
"  freely  "  do,  and  it  is  hopelessly  impossible  for  me  to  make  any 
provision  against  "  free  ".acts  of  the  most  deplorable  description.  A 
knowledge  of  my  own  character  in  the  past  brings  with  it  neither 
•hope  nor  consolation.  My  "freedom"  is  just  as  "free"  as  that 
of  the  man  who  was  hanged  last  week.  It  is  not  conditioned  by 
my  character  ;  if  he  could  "  freely  "  commit  murder,  so  can  I.  It 
is  true  that  I  never  dream  of  killing  a  man,  and  would  not  do 
it  for  the  world  ;  the  /  that  I  know  sickens  at  the  thought.  Yet 
to  admit  that  this  /  can  prevent  it,  is  to  become  a  determinist. 
If  I  am  "  free,"  I  cannot  enter  this  city  of  refuge.  Is  "  freedom  " 
a  thing  that  can  be  inherited  as  a  bodily  or  mental  constitution  ? 
Can  it  be  repressed  by  a  course  of  education,  or  laid  in  chains 
by  lifelong  habit  ?  In  so  far  as  any  action  is  "free,"  what  I 
have  inherited,  what  I  have  been,  what  I  am,  what  I  have  always 
done  or  striven  to  do,  what  I  most  earnestly  wish  or  resolve  to 
do  at  the  present  moment — these  things  can  have  no  more  to  do 
with  its  future  realization  than  if  they  had  no  existence. 


Fatalism,  "  Free-ivill,"  and  Determinism  563 

If,  then,  I  really  am  "  free,"  I  must  face  the  possibility  that  I 
may  at  any  moment  do  anything  that  any  man  may  "  freely"  do. 

The  possibility  is  a  hideous  one  ;  and  the  most  ardent  "  free- 
willist "  will,  when  he  contemplates  it  frankly,  excuse  me  for 
hoping  that,  if  I  am  "free,"  I  am  at  least  not  very  "  free."  An 
excess  of  such  "  freedom "  is  indistinguishable  from  the  most 
abject  slavery  to  lawless  caprice. 

I  cannot,  then,  count  upon  myself.  Good  resolutions  cannot 
help  me  ;  I  mortify  the  flesh  in  vain.  And  when  I  reflect  upon 
the  fact  that  my  fellow-men  are  "  free  "  too,  I  despair  of  bettering 
them  by  the  offer  of  rewards  or  the  threat  of  punishment.  In  so 
far  as  they  are  "  free,"  they  are  absolutely  beyond  my  control  and 
their  own  ;  persuasion  cannot  move  them  ;  hope  cannot  draw 
them  on  ;  fear  of  pain  cannot  hold  them  back.  "  Freedom  "  can- 
not be  influenced  by  anything  or  it  would  not  be  "  freedom  "  —  the 
idea  of  making  laws  for  it,  and  of  attaching  to  such  laws  penalties, 
is  nothing  less  than  absurd.  A  child  has  been  guilty  of  a  "  free  " 
action  of  a  sort  commonly  regarded  as  reprehensible.  He  has 
been  caught  in  the  pantry.  Shall  his  mother  punish  him  ?  It 
seems  foolish  to  punish  him  merely  because  he  has  done  the  thing- 
he  is  charged  with,  for,  strictly  speaking,  he  has  not  done  the  thing; 
it  cannot  be  referred  to  his  character  ;  there  Avas  nothing  in  him 
to  account  for  its  appearance,  and  there  was  nothing  in  him  that 
could  have  inhibited  the  action.  The  act  was  a  "free"  one,  i.e. 
it  was  a  cuckoo's  egg,  found  in  the  same  nest  with  other  eggs,  but 
not  to  be  attributed  to  the  same  source.  But  shall  the  child  not 
be  punished  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  the  deed  ?  How  futile  a 
measure  !  Can  any  sensible  person  believe  that  a  woman  can  with 
a  slipper  make  such  changes  in  a  child's  mind  or  body  or  both,  as 
to  determine  the  occurrence  or  non-occurrence  of  acts  which  are, 
by  hypothesis,  independent  of  what  is  contained  in  the  child  and 
in  his  environment  ?  As  well  beat  the  child  to  prevent  the  light- 
ning from  striking  the  steeple  in  the  next  street.  Only  in  so  far 
as  he  is  not  "  free  "  is  he  a  creature  to  be  reasoned  with,  to  be  per- 
suaded, to  be  promised  rewards,  to  be  threatened,  to  be  punished. 
Which  means  that  only  in  so  far  as  he  is  not  "  free  "  is  he  a  ra- 
tional human  being,  capable  of  taking  a  place  in  the  great  organ- 
ism of  society.  In  so  far  as  he  is  "  free  "  he  is  a  monster,  beyond 
the  reach  of  all  human  influences  ;  and  were  he  very  "  free  "  we 
should  certainly  be  compelled  to  keep  him  under  lock  and  key. 


564  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

I  think  I  hear  the  "  free-willist "  object,  that  he  does  not  pos- 
tulate a  great  deal  of  "  freedom "  but  a  very  little.  We  know 
that  men  do  not  ordinarily  jump  from  open  windows  to  their  own 
detriment ;  nor,  when  they  take  their  seat  at  the  table,  do  they  cut 
their  throat  with  the  knife  beside  their  plate.  They  are  withheld 
from  such  acts  by  considerations,  i.e.  their  actions  are  undoubt- 
edly influenced  by  character  and  environment.  If  we  assume 
just  a  little  "  free-will,"  we  do  not  render  of  no  avail  persuasion 
and  punishment.  We  may  persuade  and  punish  so  artfully  and 
so  vigorously  as  to  overcome  the  erratic  influences  of  "  freedom," 
and  propel  our  "  free  "  agent  along  a  path  previously  determined. 
"  Free-will  "  may  help  this  progress,  or  may  somewhat  hinder  it ; 
it  cannot  be  counted  upon  ;  but,  if  the  wind  happen  to  be  con- 
trary, let  us  push  the  harder. 

We  are,  then,  always  to  use  a  little  more  energy  than  the 
occasion  seems  to  call  for ;  we  are  to  furnish  a  surplus  which  will 
cover  the  aberrations  of  "  free-will " ;  we  are  to  deal  out  forty 
stripes  plus  one,  where,  in  the  absence  of  "  free-will,"  forty  minus 
one  would  seem  a  sufficient  deterrent  from  crime.  Thus  will  the 
prudent  ferryman,  when  he  discovers  that  a  passenger  about  to 
step  into  his  boat  is  a  "  free-will "  creature,  whose  weight  may 
causelessly  oscillate  between  one  hundred  and  two  hundred 
pounds,  take  into  consideration  the  danger  of  possible  shipwreck, 
and  make  allowance  for  the  worst  that  "  free-will "  can  do. 

It  is,  then,  possible  to  maintain  that  the  stirrings  of  "  free- 
will "  are  too  feeble  to  make  of  man  a  wholly  irrational  and  un- 
accountable being ;  one  may  insist  that  he  is  endowed  with  but 
a  few  grains  of  irrationality,  and  is,  on  the  whole,  not  beyond 
the  reach  of  persuasion,  but  a  thing  to  be  moved  by  considera- 
tions. To  be  sure,  it  sounds  odd  for  a  man  to  keep  insisting  that 
"freedom  "  is  a  very  good  thing,  and  yet,  in  the  same  breath,  to 
keep  assuring  us  that  it  is  a  very  good  thing  that  we  have  very 
little  of  it.  There  are,  however,  some  good  things  of  which  it  is 
desirable  to  have  but  little ;  an  excess  of  good  vinegar  can  spoil 
a  salad.  Is  "  freedom  "  a  something  desirable  in  small  quantities, 
and  to  be  regretted  only  when  present  in  excess? 

I  think  it  has  been  made  clear  in  the  preceding  pages  that 
even  a  little  "freedom"  is  undesirable.  Just  in  so  far  as  a  man 
is  "  free,"  the  aets  that  seem  to  be  his  are  not  his  ;  he  is  the  sport 
of  mere  caprice  ;  his  breast  is  the  seat  of  uncaused  and  inexplicable 


Fatalism,  "  Free-will,"  and  Determinism  565 

explosions,  which  no  man  can  predict,  and  which  set  at  defiance 
all  the  forces  which  make  for  civilization.  Why  should  a  man 
wish  to  be  even  a  little  "  free  "  ?  Is  it  that  he  may  be  moral  ? 

A  very  little  reflection  is  sufficient  to  make  it  evident  that  no 
"  free  "  act  can  possibly  be  a  moral  act.  We  have  all  our  lives 
been  judging  our  actions  and  those  of  our  fellow-men.  Some 
of  them  we  approve;  some  we  very  strongly  disapprove.  But 
no  man  of  sense  passes  judgment  upon  human  actions  before  he 
has  found  out  something  about  their  setting.  We  pry  into  men's 
motives  and  inquire  regarding  their  intentions.  Precisely  the 
same  act  may  be  good  or  bad,  according  to  its  context.  It  is  not 
a  moral  act  for  a  savage  to  save  a  man  alive,  if  he  be  spared  with 
the  intention  of  fattening  and  eating  him  later. 

Now  let  us  suppose  that  the  action  under  discussion  is  my 
contribution  of  a  dollar  to  the  hoard  of  the  beggar  on  the  street- 
corner.  Is  it  a  moral  action?  Only  the  unreflective  will  under- 
take to  answer  offhand  that  it  is.  I  may  have  given  that  dollar 
in  the  hope  that  one  more  drinking-bout  would  finish  the  beggar, 
and  relieve  me  of  his  uneesthetic  presence  when  I  take  my  daily 
walk.  I  may  have  given  it  out  of  pure  vanity,  and  to  compel  the 
admiration  of  the  pleasing  young  person  who  is  waiting  for  the 
tram.  On  the  other  hand,  I  may  have  given  it  because  I  was 
moved  by  the  sight  of  suffering,  and  was  willing  to  make  a  sacri- 
fice for  the  sake  of  relieving  it.  It  seems  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  to  judge  that  the  action  is  moral  or  not  moral  accord- 
ing to  the  setting  in  which  we  find  it. 

But  what  if  the  act  was  a  "  free  "  one  ?  What  if  it  was  not 
determined  by  my  character  and  impulses  and  the  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances in  which  I  was  placed?  In  this  case  it  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  my  desire  to  be  rid  of  the  beggar's  presence. 
The  impression  made  upon  me  by  the  fair  onlooker  cannot 
account  for  it.  The  sight  of  the  beggar's  misery  furnishes  no 
explanation.  We  cannot  ask  wliy  the  act  was  done.  It  was  a 
"  free  "  act.  It  simply  appeared.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that, 
just  in  so  far  as  an  act  is  "  free,"  it  cannot  be  accounted  for  by 
any  ideas  antecedently  in  my  mind,  or  by  my  natural  tendency 
to  selfishness,  to  vanity,  or  to  generous  movements  of  sympathy. 
It  does  not  indicate  in  me  either  benevolence  or  baseness.  It  is 
an  act  without  a  setting  —  causeless,  purposeless,  blind.  Is  it  a 
moral  act?  Surely  we  have  turned  our  face  resolutely  away  from 


566  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

the  moral  judgments  of  mankind,  when  we  have  committed 
ourselves  to  the  unnatural  doctrine  that  "  free "  acts  are 
moral. 

If  so  very  little  can  be  said  for  indeterminism,  why  is  it  that 
so  many  good  men  defend  it?  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek; 
they  suppose  that  they  are  defending  human  freedom.  Lucretius 
felt  that  nothing  short  of  a  causeless  origination  of  motions  could 
"break  through  the  decrees  of  fate,"  and  surely  we  must  all  admit 
that  a  man  subject  to  the  decrees  of  fate  is  not  a  free  man.  It 
does  not  lie  with  (Edipus  to  decide  whether  he  shall  or  shall  not 
kill  Laius.  The  notion  that  a  denial  of  "  free-will  "  is  a  denial 
of  human  freedom  and  a  surrender  to  fatalism  is  a  widespread 
error,  and  is  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  the  surprising  things 
men  have  said  on  the  subject  of  the  will. 

It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  the  doctrine  of  indeterminism 
should  have  come  to  be  called  the  doctrine  of  "free-will."  We 
have  all  heard  much  of  fate  and  free-will,  and  no  man  with  the 
spirit  of  a  man  in  him  thinks,  without  inward  revolt,  of  the  possi- 
bility that  his  destiny  is  shaped  for  him  by  some  irresistible  exter- 
nal power  in  the  face  of  which  he  is  impotent.  No  normal  man 
welcomes  the  thought  that  he  is  not  free,  and  the  denial  of  free- 
will can  scarcely  fail  to  meet  with  his  reprobation.  We  recognize 
freedom  as  the  dearest  of  our  possessions,  the  guarantee,  indeed, 
of  all  our  possessions.  The  denial  of  freedom  we  associate  with 
wrong  and  oppression,  the  scourge  and  the  dungeon,  the  tyranny 
of  brute  force,  the  despair  of  the  captive,  the  sodden  degradation 
of  the  slave.  Freedom  is  the  open  door  to  the  thousand-fold 
activities  which  well  up  within  us,  and  to  which  we  give  expres- 
sion with  joy. 

But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  freedom — the  freedom 
for  which  men  have  died,  and  which  poets  have  sung  —  has  no 
more  to  do  with  indeterminism,  with  "  freedom,"  than  has  the 
Dog,  a  celestial  constellation,  with  the  terrestrial  animal  that 
barks.  The  antithesis  of  freedom  is  compulsion,  that  hateful 
thing  that  does  violence  to  our  nature  and  crushes  with  iron  hand 
its  activities.  We  say  that  a  man  is  under  compulsion,  when  the 
impulses  of  his  own  nature  are  overborne  by  some  external  power 
and  are  prevented  from  translating  themselves  into  action.  When 
I  wish  to  raise  my  hand  from  the  table,  and  find  it  held  down  by 
another,  I  am  under  compulsion.  I  am  free  when  I  can  assert 


Fatalism,  "Free-will,"  and  Determinism  567 

myself ;  when  /  can  do  something  ;  when  the  action  in  question 
can  be  referred  to  the  idea  in  my  mind. 

Of  course,  in  so  far  as  actions  which  appear  to  be  mine  are 
fated,  I  am  not  free.  Some  external  power  is  responsible  for  the 
actions  in  question.  But  it  is  equally  clear  that,  in  so  far  as  any 
actions  which  appear  to  be  mine  are  "  free  "  actions,  I  am  not  free 
either.  Such  actions  are  not  done  by  me,  and  cannot  be  pre- 
vented by  me.  They  make  their  appearance  independently  ;  / 
am  not  consulted  at  all  in  the  matter. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  fatalist  and  the  "  free-willist,"  cordially 
as  they  seem  to  detest  each  other,  are  really  fighting  for  the  same 
cause.  The  former  is  eager  to  maintain  that  actions  of  which  I 
appear  to  be  the  author  are  done  by  some  other  power.  The 
latter  strenuously  insists  that  actions  of  which  I  appear  to  be  the 
author,  are  done  by  no  power  at  all.  Both  agree  in  denying  my 
causal  efficiency ;  both  reduce  me  to  a  passive  spectator  of  what 
appear  to  be  my  acts. 

It  is  clear  that  the  "  free-willist "  has  gone  too  far.  He  has 
set  me  free  from  another,  and,  riot  content  with  that,  he  has  gone 
on  to  set  me  free  from  myself.  He  has  refused  to  refer  my 
behavior  to  another  ;  now  he  refuses  to  refer  my  behavior  to  me. 
In  other  words,  he  has  set  me,  not  free,  but  "free."  To  withdraw 
me  from  society  he  has  condemned  me  to  a  confinement  so  solitary 
that  I  am  not  even  in  the  cell  with  myself. 

This  is  not  freedom.  To  be  a  free  agent,  man  must  at  least 
be  an  agent.  Of  the  three  doctrines,  fatalism,  "  free-will,"  and 
determinism,  it  is  only  the  last  that  guarantees  man's  freedom.  It 
holds  that  man  is  really  an  agent — that  his  acts  may  be  attributed 
to  him,  that  they  have  their  roots  in  his  character  as  well  as  in  his 
environment. 

Determinism  is  the  doctrine  that  all  the  phenomena  of  nature 
are  subject  to  law ;  it  is  a  frank  recognition  of  the  order  of  causes 
as  it  seems  to  be  revealed  to  us.  The  fall  of  a  raindrop,  the  un- 
folding of  a  flower,  the  twitching  of  an  eyelid,  the  penning  of  a 
sentence  —  all  these,  the  determinist  maintains,  have  their  ade- 
quate causes,  though  the  causes  of  such  occurrences  lie,  in  great 
part,  beyond  the  line  which  divides  our  knowledge  from  our 
ignorance.  Determinism  is,  of  course,  a  faith ;  for  it  is  as  yet 
impossible  for  science  to  demonstrate  even  that  the  fluttering  of 
an  aspen-leaf  in  the  summer  breeze  is  wholly  subject  to  law ;  and 


568  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

that  every  turn  or  twist  upon  its  stem  must  be  just  what  it  is,  and 
nothing  else,  in  view  of  the  whole  system  of  forces  in  play  at  the 
moment.  Much  less  is  it  possible  to  prove  in  detail  that  that 
complicated  creature  called  a  man,  draws  out  his  chair,  sits  down 
to  dinner,  gives  his  neighbor  the  best  cut  of  the  beef,  discusses 
the  political  situation,  and  resists  the  attractions  of  the  decanter 
before  him,  strictly  in  accordance  with  law.  No  man  can  prove 
that  every  motion  of  every  muscle  is  the  effect  of  antecedent 
causes  which  are  incalculable  only  because  of  the  limitations  of 
our  intelligence  and  our  ignorance  of  existing  facts.  And  yet 
the  faith  of  science  seems  to  those  trained  in  the  sciences  a  reason- 
able thing,  for,  as  is  pointed  out,  it  is  progressively  justified  by  the 
gradual  advance  of  human  knowledge,  and  even  in  fields  in  which 
anything  like  exact  knowledge  is  at  present  unattainable,  the  little 
we  do  know  hints  unmistakably  at  the  reign  of  law. 

Determinism  is,  then,  nothing  less  than  a  recognition  of  the 
order  which  reigns  in  the  world.  It  differs  from  fatalism  in  that 
it  refuses  to  ignore  arbitrarily  certain  causal  sequences  to  which 
experience  appears  to  give  unequivocal  testimony.  It  regards  as 
absurd  the  notion  that  an  end  can  be  determined  independently 
of  means  —  that  the  slaying  of  Lams  has  no  necessary  connection 
with  the  actions  of  Lams  and  of  (Edipus.  And  it  differs  from 
indeterminism  in  holding  that  there  is  no  action  which  may  not 
theoretically  be  traced  to  its  causes.  In  recognizing  that  ideas 
may  stand  to  actions  in  the  relation  of  plan  to  accomplishment, 
and  that  the  ideas  themselves  are  not  inexplicable  appearances, 
without  relation  to  anything  that  has  preceded  them,  it  recog- 
nizes that  man  has  a  character  and  can  act  freely  in  harmony  with 
his  character.  It  views  man  as  he  is  viewed  by  the  judge,  the 
philanthropist,  the  moralist,  the  pedagogue,  and  the  plain  man. 

Men  generally  regard  a  man  as  free  when  he  is  in  a  position  to 
be  influenced  by  those  considerations  by  which  they  think  the 
normal  man  not  under  compulsion  naturally  is  influenced.  They 
do  not  think  that  he  is  robbed  of  his  freedom  in  so  far  as  he  has  a 
character,  weighs  motives,  seeks  information,  is  influenced  by  per- 
suasion. What  would  become  of  our  social  system  if  men  had  no 
character,  and  were  not  affected  by  influences  of  this  sort  ?  The 
popular  prejudice  against  determinism  must  be  due  to  a  miscon- 
ception. It  is  due  to  the  misconception  that  determinism  and 
fatalism  are  the  same  thing ;  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  deter- 


Fatalism,  "Freewill"  and  Determinism  569 

minism  is  the  only  doctrine  which  effectually  combats  fatalism 
and  rescues  for  us  that  freedom  without  which  man  would  not 
be  man. 

A  determinist  cannot,  then,  be  a  fatalist.  I  have  said  some 
pages  back  that  he  may  or  may  not  be  a  parallelist.  It  ought  to 
be  evident  that  he  may  or  may  not  be  a  materialist  or  an  idealist, 
a  monist  or  a  dualist,  a  theist,  an  atheist,  or  an  agnostic.  From 
this  sheaf  of  "  isms  "  he  must  choose  on  other  grounds  than  his 
determinism.  As  a  determinist  he  must  regard  the  world  as 
an  orderly  world  and  recognize  cause  and  effect  wherever  they 
seem  to  be  revealed.  But  men  may  agree  upon  this  point,  and 
yet  differ  widely  touching  the  ultimate  nature  of  this  orderly 
world.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  determinist  from  being  a 
theologian,  and  upholding  the  doctrine  of  predestination.  How- 
ever, he  must  not  be  a  fatalistic  predestinarian  ;  he  must  regard 
the  Divine  plan  as  embracing  means  as  well  as  ends ;  he  must 
make  it  all-inclusive.  If  he  does  this,  he  can  say,  with  George 
Herbert :  — 

"  O  sacred  Providence,  Who  from  end  to  end 
Strongly  and  sweetly  movest !  shall  I  write, 
And  not  of  Thee,  through  whom  my  fingers  bend 
To  hold  my  quill  ?  shall  they  not  do  Thee  right  ?  "  .  .  . 

"  We  all  acknowledge  both  Thy  power  and  love 
To  be  exact,  transcendent,  and  divine; 
Who  dost  so  strongly  and  so  sweetly  move, 
While  all  things  have  their  will,  yet  none  but  Thine." 


CHAPTER   XXXIV 

OF  GOD 

I  HAVE  said  in  an  earlier  chapter l  that  there  is  but  one  argu- 
ment for  the  existence  of  minds,  and  I  have  insisted  that  the 
assumption  that  minds  exist  must  not  be  made  lightly  and  with- 
out good  reason. 

That  men  have  made  and  do  make  a  multitude  of  hasty  infer- 
ences of  the  sort  needs  no  proof.  The  bright  cloud  of  the 
greater  and  lesser  divinities  with  which  the  poetic  imagination 
of  the  Greek  peopled  heaven  and  earth  could  not  endure  the 
beams  of  the  rising  sun,  and  it  dissolved  and  disappeared.  To 
primitive  man  all  things  are  full  of  gods  in  a  very  literal  sense, 
and  when  primitive  man  learns  to  reflect,  these  gods  are  banished 
to  the  realm  of  mere  imaginings.  So  beautiful  are  the  unreal 
creatures  born  of  the  uncritical  thought  of  a  gifted  race,  that  one 
feels  a  pang  as  one  sees  them  fade  away.  The  sky,  the  earth,  and 
the  expanse  of  ocean  seem  robbed  of  the  life  with  which  they 
pulsated,  and  there  are  moments  in  which  even  the  modern  man 
is  tempted  to  envy  the  pagan  "suckled  in  a  creed  outworn." 

Our  world,  the  world  which  science  and  the  development  of 
reflective  thought  present  to  our  gaze,  is,  it  is  true,  a  something 
much  more  august  than  the  cosey  little  world  in  which  the  Greek 
found  himself  so  much  at  home.  Of  its  majesty  the  ancient 
thinkers  had  glimpses  not  vouchsafed  to  their  unthinking 
fellows.  But  the  long  labor  of  the  ages  has  brought  us  to  a 
deeper  realization  of  its  greatness  and  to  an  abiding  sense  of  the 
littleness  of  man.  We  are  more  conscious  of  our  ignorance  than 
were  our  predecessors,  and  the  very  growth  of  our  knowledge  has 
forced  us  to  see  how  far  we  fall  short  of  the  ideal  of  knowledge 
which  we  have  come  to  hold  before  ourselves  and  which  we  make 
efforts  to  attain.  In  this  great  world  which  we  see  dimly  pre- 
sented to  us  man  seems  to  hold  an  insignificant  place  ;  it  is,  per- 

i  Chapter  XXVIII. 
570 


Of  God  571 

haps,  natural  that  he  should  sometimes  realize  this  with  a  shiver, 
and  look  back  regretfully  to  a  world  that  is  dead  and  gone. 

But  what  is  the  world  as  it  is  revealed  to  the  modern  man  ? 
It  is  still  a  world  of  matter  and  of  minds.  But  the  world  of 
matter  has  expanded  into  a  vast  mechanism,  which  we  cannot  dare 
to  limit  either  in  space  or  in  time,  and  with  whose  laws  we  have 
but  the  beginning  of  an  acquaintance,  —  a  mechanism  in  compari- 
son with  which  man's  little  body,  the  solid  earth  upon  which  he 
stands,  the  scalar  system  of  which  it  is  a  part,  are  as  vanishing 
quantities.  And  the  realm  of  minds  which  can  be  indubitably 
proved  to  exist  seems  to  have  shrunk  into  insignificance,  leaving 
the  great  world  bare  and  desolate. 

Science  tells  of  a  time  when  there  was  no  life  upon  the  earth, 
and  predicts  a  time  when  life  shall  have  disappeared.  Even  in 
our  little  corner  of  the  Universe,  the  existence  of  the  minds  which 
criticism  has  left  us  appears  to  be  a  passing  existence.  They 
come,  and  they  are  gone,  and  their  place  knows  them  no  more. 
Of  minds  related  to  organisms  in  other  worlds  than  ours,  we  may 
speculate,  but  we  know  nothing  definite.  If  there  be  such,  must 
we  not  assume  that  they  people  a  world  in  a  given  phase  of  its 
existence,  and  disappear  as  minds  and  organisms  will  disappear 
on  this  planet  ?  The  world  is,  then,  a  world  of  matter  and  of 
minds  —  but  the  world  is  great,  and  the  minds  seem  lost  in  the 
immensities  of  time  and  space. 

Is  this  the  sum  of  things  to  the  modern  man,  the  heir  of  the 
ages?  There  can  be,  I  think,  no  doubt  that  the  student  of  the 
sciences  who  is  willing  to  walk  only  upon  a  path  illumined  by 
the  clear  light  of  demonstrative  evidence,  the  man  who  will  accept 
only  what  is  proved  as  definitely  as  it  can  be  proved  that  there  is 
hydrogen  in  the  sun  or  that  other  men  have  minds  like  his  own, 
must  accept  this  world  in  its  bareness  and  in  its  desolation. 

And  yet  to  the  mass  of  men  this  is  not  the  sum  of  things  ;  the 
world  thus  viewed  is  a  world  robbed  of  its  soul,  a  world  dead  and 
meaningless,  and  not  the  living  reality  in  whose  presence  they 
feel  themselves  to  be.  They  cannot  escape  the  conviction  that 
the  world  reveals,  not  merely  minds,  those  little  minds  whose 
existence  and  whose  nature  it  seems  possible  to  determine  in  the 
light  of  what  will  generally  be  accepted  as  scientific  evidence,  but 
also  Mind,  a  something  immeasurably  greater  than  any  or  all  of 
these.  In  other  words,  they  believe  in  God  ;  and  it  is  of  this 


572  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

belief  —  a  belief  so  venerable  and  one  that  has  played  so  impor- 
tant a  part  in  the  evolution  of  humanity  that  it  cannot  be  treated 
lightly  by  any  thoughtful  man  —  that  I  purpose  to  speak  in  this 
chapter. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  duty  of  the  metaphysician  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God,  as  it  is  no  part  of  his  duty  to  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  any  given  finite  mind.  But  just  as  it  clearly  is  his  duty 
to  make  evident  what  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  a  mind,  how  we 
are  to  conceive  of  minds  as  related  to  matter,  and  the  nature  of 
the  inference  by  which  we  establish  the  existence  of  minds  ;  so  it 
is  his  duty  to  show  what  we  may  legitimately  mean  when  we 
speak  of  God,  how  we  are  to  conceive  of  God  as  related  to  the 
world,  arid  the  nature  of  the  inference  on  which  a  belief  in  God 
may  find  its  foundation.  To  be  sure,  one  may  believe  very  firmly 
in  the  existence  of  other  men's  minds,  and  one  may  be  penetrated 
with  the  conviction  that  God  exists,  without  ever  having  attained 
to  any  clear  ideas  at  all  upon  the  points  above  mentioned.  In 
each  case  one  may  be  in  the  possession  of  truth.  But  a  truth 
dimly  grasped  is  always  a  truth  more  or  less  in  danger  of  admix- 
ture with  error,  and  from  such  error  the  analyses  of  the  meta- 
physician may  help  to  free  one.  They  are  not  without  their  uses. 

Of  all  the  arguments  which  have  been  advanced  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God  there  is  but  one  that  can  be  said  to  have  really 
influenced  men's  minds,  and  that  is  the  Argument  from  Design. 
It  maintains  that  we  find  in  the  world  evidences  of  a  Mind  that 
is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  minds  referred  to  particular  organ- 
isms. It  appeals  to  the  plain  man  quite  as  strongly  as  it  has 
appealed  to  the  philosopher  and  to  the  theologian  ;  it  seems  to 
him  simple,  unambiguous,  and  in  harmony  with  the  dictates  of 
common  sense.  Even  when  he  is  not  wholly  content  to  accept 
its  conclusion,  it  appears  to  him  an  argument  which  a  sensible 
man  need  not  be  ashamed  to  bring  forward.  Of  this  argument  I 
shall  speak  at  some  length  after  a  while  ;  but  first  I  must  say 
something  of  proofs  of  a  different  sort. 

As  the  student  of  the  history  of  speculative  thought  well 
knows,  there  is  quite  a  collection  of  such.  They  have  seemed 
satisfactory  to  those  who  discovered  them,  and  perhaps  to  a  few 
of  their  disciples.  To  the  mass  of  mankind  they  mean  nothing  at 
all.  This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  a  detailed  criticism  of 
theistic  arguments,  for  the  discussion  would  have  to  be  a  long 


Of  God  573 

one  ;  but  I  may  be  permitted  to  illustrate  what  an  argument  for 
God  should  not  be  by  a  reference  to  arguments  of  this  kind. 

For  convenience  I  shall  divide  them  into  two  classes  :  those 
which  make  God  a  mind,  but  prove  His  existence  in  a  way  in 
which  it  is  not  sensible  to  try  to  prove  the  existence  of  any  mind  ; 
and  those  which  make  God  something  else  than  a  mind,  and 
which,  hence,  cannot  properly  be  called  theistic  arguments,  what- 
ever they  may  or  may  riot  prove. 

For  a  good  illustration  of  arguments  of  the  first  class  I  turn  to 
Bishop  Berkeley.  The  objects  perceived  by  the  senses  can  have 
no  existence,  he  maintains,  except  in  a  mind.  Our  perceptions  of 
such  objects  are  intermittent  —  there  is  no  sensible  thing  of  which 
we  are  continuously  conscious.  Yet  the  objects  of  sense  must 
have  a  continuous  existence,  for  it  is  absurd  to  maintain  that  the 
world  is  at  every  instant  annihilated  and  created  anew.  The 
world  must,  then,  exist  continuously,  and,  since  it  does  not  exist 
continuously  in  any  finite  mind,  there  must  exist  a  divine  Mind 
in  which  it  has  its  being  :  "  As  sure,  therefore,  as  the  sensible 
world  really  exists,  so  sure  is  there  an  infinite  omnipresent  Spirit 
who  contains  and  supports  it." 

The  error  at  the  root  of  this  argument  I  have  indicated  in 
Chapter  VII.  Berkeley  has  confounded  things  with  the  percep- 
tion of  things  in  this  mind  or  in  that.  He  has  turned  the  divine 
Mind  into  a  cupboard  for  the  storing  of  unused  percepts.  Had 
he  held  on  to  an  external  world,  as  he  should  have  done,  and  had  he 
realized  what  it  means  for  a  thing  to  exist  in  the  external  world, 
he  would  not  have  had  the  shadow  of  a  foundation  for  this  fantas- 
tic argument.  It  impresses  as  untrustworthy  even  those  who  do 
not  see  clearly  just  where  he  has  gone  wrong.  It  is  not  self-evi- 
dent that  percepts  must  exist  continuously ;  we  have  no  evidence 
that  percepts  are  transferred  from  mind  to  mind  as  chairs  may  be 
carried  from  one  room  to  another  ;  it  never  occurs  to  us  to  try  to 
prove  the  existence  of  any  finite  mind  on  no  better  ground  than 
the  loss  of  percepts  from  our  own.  The  argument  is  emphatically 
an  argument  for  the  philosopher,  and  for  the  philosopher  who  is 
already  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  conclusion  and  cares  little 
to  scrutinize  the  premises. 

The  fides  quaerens  intellectum,  the  faith  that  already  has  its 
conclusion,  and  is  casting  about  for  premises,  is  always  in  some 
danger  of  accepting  premises  uncritically.  We  must  not  be  too 


574  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

severe  upon  Berkeley,  for  this  lovable  soul  was  misled  by  a 
weakness  which  belongs  to  our  common  human  nature.  And  we 
must  not  be  too  severe  upon  Anselm  and  Descartes  for  the  mediae- 
val subtlety  which  would,  as  it  has  happily  been  expressed,  coerce 
God  into  existence  by  sheer  force  of  definition. 

"  We  believe,"  cries  Anselm,1  "  that  Thou  art  a  being  than 
which  nothing  greater  can  be  thought.  Is  there,  then,  no  such 
nature,  because  the  fool  has  said  in  his  heart  :  There  is  no  God  ? 
But  surely  the  fool  himself,  when  he  hears  me  speak  of  a  being 
than  which  nothing  greater  can  be  thought,  understands  what  he 
hears,  and  what  he  understands  is  in  his  mind,  although  he  does 
not  understand  that  the  being  exists.  For  it  is  one  thing  to  have 
an  idea  of  an  object ;  another,  to  know  that  the  object  exists. 
When  a  painter  thinks  of  a  picture  which  he  is  about  to  paint,  he 
has  the  picture  in  his  mind  ;  but  he  knows  that  it  does  not  yet 
exist,  because  he  has  not  painted  it.  But  when  he  has  painted  it, 
he  both  has  it  in  his  mind  and  knows  that  it  exists,  for  he  has 
painted  it.  Hence  even  the  fool  may  be  convinced  that  there 
exists,  at  least  in  his  mind,  something  than  which  nothing  greater 
can  be  thought.  When  he  hears  this  mentioned,  he  understands 
it,  and  what  he  understands  is  in  his  mind.  But  that,  than  which 
nothing  greater  can  be  thought,  cannot  exist  only  in  the  mind  ; 
for  if  it  exists  only  in  the  mind,  something  can  be  thought  as 
existing  both  in  the  mind  and  in  reality,  and  this  is  greater.  If, 
therefore,  that  than  which  nothing  greater  can  be  thought,  exists 
only  in  the  mind,  then  that,  than  which  nothing  greater  can  be 
thought,  is  that,  than  which  something  greater  can  be  thought ;  but 
surely  this  cannot  be.  Hence  there  exists,  without  doubt,  some- 
thing than  which  nothing  greater  can  be  thought,  and  this  exists 
both  in  the  mind  and  in  reality." 

"  Now  if,"  writes  Descartes,2  "  from  the  mere  fact  that  I  can 
draw  from  my  thought  the  idea  of  an  object,  it  follows  that  every- 
thing I  clearly  and  distinctly  apprehend  to  belong  to  that  object 
really  does  belong  to  it,  may  I  not  draw  from  this  an  argument 
and  a  demonstrative  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  ?  It  is  as 
certain  that  I  find  in  myself  the  idea  of  Him,  i.e.  the  idea  of  a 
supremely  perfect  being,  as  that  I  find  in  myself  the  idea  of  any 
figure  or  number.  And  I  know  just  as  clearly  and  distinctly  that 
an  actual  and  eternal  existence  belongs  to  His  nature,  as  I  know 
1  "  Proslogion,"  II.  2  "Meditation  cinquierue." 


Of  God  575 

that  everything  I  can  demonstrate  of  a  given  figure  or  number 
really  belongs  to  the  nature  of  that  figure  or  number.  Hence, 
even  if  the  conclusions  arrived  at  in  the  preceding  '  Meditations ' 
should  be  found  to  be  false,  I  ought  to  regard  the  existence  of 
God  as  being  at  least  as  certain  as  I  have  heretofore  believed  the 
mathematical  truths  to  be  which  are  concerned  only  with  numbers 
and  figures  ;  though,  in  truth,  this  may  not  appear  quite  clear  at 
first  sight,  but  may  seem  somewhat  sophistic.  For,  being  accus- 
tomed to  distinguish  in  all  other  things  existence  from  essence, 
I  easily  persuade  myself  that  God's  existence  can  be  separated 
from  His  essence,  and  that,  hence,  one  can  conceive  God  as  not 
actually  existing.  Nevertheless,  when  I  give  closer  attention  to 
the  matter,  I  find  that  God's  existence  can  no  more  be  separated 
from  His  essence,  than  from  the  essence  of  a  rectilinear  triangle 
can  be  separated  the  equality  of  the  sum  of  its  three  angles  to  two 
right  angles,  or  from  the  idea  of  a  mountain  the  idea  of  a  valley. 
Thus  it  is  no  less  absurd  to  conceive  of  a  God,  i.e.  of  a  supremely 
perfect  Being,  that  lacks  existence,  i.e.  that  lacks  some  perfection, 
than  it  is  to  conceive  of  a  mountain  without  a  valley." 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  analyze  these  arguments  at  length. 
They  have  long  been  dead.  The  reader  has  probably  observed 
that  they  rest  in  part  upon  a  misapprehension  of  the  meaning  of 
the  words  "real  existence."  Real  existence  is  not  a  constituent 
property  or  attribute  of  a  thing  —  a  something  which,  when  added 
to  the  other  attributes,  completes  the  thing,  and,  when  abstracted, 
leaves  the  thing  defective.  What  we  can  mean  by  real  existence 
has  been  indicated  earlier  in  this  volume,  and  it  is  very  clear  that 
it  is  not  a  something  which  we  may  extract  from  a  mere  idea  by 
the  aid  of  an  analysis.  The  verdict  of  the  world  touching  such 
arguments  as  the  above  does  not  widely  differ  from  that  attributed 
to  Gerson,  the  famous  chancellor  of  the  University  of  Paris  :  "  I 
do  not  know  which  is  the  bigger  fool,  he  who  admits  this  conclu- 
sion, or  he  who  says  in  his  heart  :  There  is  no  God."  l 

From  such  arguments  as  these,  I  pass  to  those  of  the  second 
class  mentioned  above  —  those  which  make  God  something  else 
than  a  Mind,  and  which,  hence,  cannot  properly  be  regarded  as 
theistic  arguments  at  all.  It  would  be  absurd  to  maintain  that 
their  authors  have  not,  in  many  instances  at  least,  intended  them 
as  theistic  arguments,  or  that  they  have  realized  that  the  object  of 
i  De  Verges,  "  Saint  Anselme,"  Paris,  1901,  p.  289. 


576  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

their  proof  is  not  what  men  commonly  mean  by  God.  Men  who 
advance  such  proofs  may  be  devout  theists,  and  may  be  under  the 
impression  that  they  are  establishing  the  existence  of  God,  when 
they  are  actually  doing  quite  another  thing.  My  meaning  will 
best  be  made  plain  by  a  few  illustrations,  and  to  these  I  turn 
without  further  preamble. 

It  is,  argued  Augustine,  by  depending  upon  the  evidence  of 
the  senses  that  one  comes  to  infer  the  existence  of  other  men's 
minds.  Each  mind  perceives  itself  immediately  ;  it  perceives  by 
sense  the  bodies  of  other  men,  and  infers  from  their  movements 
that  they  enclose  a  mind  similar  to  itself.  It  must,  however, 
believe  in  such  minds  :  it  cannot  know  them  as  it  knows  itself. 

Our  mind  has,  nevertheless,  immediate  and  certain  knowledge 
beyond  its  knowledge  of  itself.  When  a  man  tells  us  some  fact 
concerning  his  own  mind,  we  believe  it  ;  when  he  enunciates  some 
general  truth,  we  recognize  and  approve  it.  The  individual  voli- 
tions, etc.,  in  each  person,  but  that  one  person  can  immediately 
perceive  ;  the  truth  enunciated  is  common  to  all  ;  we  can  all  gaze 
upon  it  with  the  eye  of  the  mind.  It  is  an  "  intelligible  "  thing, 
and  exists  in  an  unchangeable  eternity.  Thus  we  perceive  truth, 
beauty,  righteousness,  which  exist  as  eternal  "forms." 

Now,  nothing  is  true,  unless  it  partakes  of  truth  ;  but  God  is 
the  Truth  per  se.  And  nothing  is  good  except  as  it  partakes  of 
goodness  ;  but  the  good  of  goods,  by  which  all  things  are  good,  is 
God.  If  one  could  put  aside  those  things  which  are  good  by  the 
participation  of  the  good,  and  could  discern  that  good  by  the  par- 
ticipation of  which  they  are  good,  one  would  discern  God.  He 
who  loves  his  brother,  loves  God,  who  is  love,  and  is  more  cer- 
tainly known  than  his  brother  — "  known  more,  because  more 
present ;  known  more,  because  more  within  him."1 

To  one  unfamiliar  with  the  history  of  philosophy  this  argu- 
ment must  seem  strange  and  unnatural  in  the  extreme.  But  to 
one  who  is  at  all  acquainted  with  the  course  of  speculative  thought 
among  the  ancients  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  every  turn  of  expres- 
sion must  sound  familiar.  Augustine  introduces  us  to  the  Platonic 
Realism,  which  turned  universals,  class  notions,  abstractions,  into 
realities,  eternal,  unchangeable,  and  higher  in  their  nature  than 
the  individual  things  which  may  be  subsumed  under  them.  To 

1  "De  Trinitate,"  VIII,  12.  See  also  "  De  Civ.  Dei,"  VIII,  6,  9;  "Solil.," 
I,  27 ;  "  De  Trin.,"  VIII,  3,  4,  5,  9,  and  XIV,  '21. 


Of  God  577 

one  who  looks  at  things  in  this  way,  the  truth,  beauty  and  goodness 
which  may  be  discerned  in  what  is  true,  beautiful,  and  good  are 
no  longer  abstractions;  they  are  independent  of  the  objects  which, 
in  Platonic  phrase,  "participate"  in  them.  What  more  natural 
than  to  believe  that  the  contemplation  of  these  eternal  realities 
is  nothing  else  than  the  contemplation  of  the  attributes  of  God  ? 
Thus,  he  who  knows  any  truth,  knows  Truth  ;  he  who  knows  any- 
thing good,  knows  Goodness  ;  he  who  loves  his  brother,  knows  his 
own  love,  and,  hence,  knows  Love.  In  knowing  these  he  knows 
God  ;  and  he  knows  Him  more  immediately  than  he  can  know 
any  finite  mind  except  his  own. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out  to  the  modern  reader  that 
this  is  in  no  sense  an  argument  for  God.  The  God  who  is  thus 
"  discerned  "  is,  after  all,  but  a  group  of  abstract  notions,  and  is 
not  in  the  least  a  mind  distinct  from  the  mind  of  man  and  revealed 
by  the  system  of  things.  That  it  is  not  known  as,  in  general, 
other  minds  are  known,  Augustine  has  himself  indicated.  So 
foreign  is  the  whole  argument  to  our  present  ways  of  thinking, 
that  it  may  occasion  some  surprise  that  I  should  here  devote  space 
to  it ;  but  the  realistic  tendency  to  turn  abstractions  into  things 
has  had  such  an  immense  influence  upon  philosophic  thought  in 
the  past,  and  has  shown  itself  in  the  writings  of  men  in  other 
respects  so  different  from  one  another,  that  it  seems  wrong  to 
make  no  reference  to  it,  when  one  is  treating  even  briefly  the 
arguments  for  God  which  men  have  deemed  it  worth  while  to 
bring  forward. 

One  would  think  it  well-nigh  impossible  to  find  a  bed  broad 
enough  to  contain  three  men  so  different  as  St.  Anselm,  Giordano 
Bruno,  and  Spinoza.  Yet  all  three  found  it  possible  to  attain  their 
chosen  ends  by  the  conversion  of  universals  —  class-notions  —  into 
individual  things.  "  He,"  writes  Anselm,  "  who  cannot  under- 
stand how  several  men  are  specifically  one  man,  is  also  incapable 
of  understanding  how  several  persons,  each  of  whom  is  God,  are 
one  God."1  The  rhapsodies  of  Bruno  must  remain  wholly  unin- 
telligible to  one  who  does  not  see  that  the  First  Absolute  Principle 
of  which  he  speaks  is  a  universal,  an  abstraction,  obtained  by 
allowing  the  differences  which  distinguish  individual  things  to 
drop  out  of  view.2  The  Spinozistic  God  or  Substance,  in  which, 

luDe  fide  Trinitatis,"  2. 

a  "Delia  Causa,  Principle  ed  Uno  :  "  Dialogo  Terzo;  ed.  Wagner,  pp.  201-264. 
2r 


578  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

in  the  pages  of  the  "  Ethics,"  all  things  seem  to  live  and  move  and 
have  their  being,  turns  out  on  examination  to  be  logically  nothing 
more  than  a  name  for  thought  and  extension  in  the  abstract.1 

It  has  gone  out  of  fashion  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  God 
by  identifying  Him  with  a  group  of  universals  ;  but  it  has  not 
gone  out  of  fashion  to  offer  demonstrations  of  God's  existence.  I 
shall  briefly  set  forth  two  that  have  been  brought  forward  in  our 
own  time,  and  are  being  more  or  less  discussed  by  our  contempo- 
raries. The  reader  will  see,  I  hope,  that  they  are  defective  in 
somewhat  the  same  way  as  the  argument  of  Augustine  is  defective 
—  it  is  only  by  a  confusion  that  the  object  with  which  they  con- 
cern themselves  can  be  regarded  as  God  at  all. 

1  pass  over  Mr.  Spencer's  attempt  to  establish  the  existence  of 
an  Absolute  which  it  is  clear  that  he  regards  as  a  quasi-deity,  and 
for  which  he  harbors  emotions  of  awe  and  veneration.     Both  the 
argument  and  its  object  have  been  examined  in  Chapter  XXVI, 
and  it  was  there  pointed  out  that  the  argument  is  a  non  sequitur 
and  that  its  object  is  simply  nothing  at  all.     The  Unknowable  we 
may  leave  out  of  account.     I  shall  begin  with  the  argument  for 
the  Absolute,  by  which  is  meant  the  Deity,2  presented  us  by  Mr. 
Bradley  in  his  work  entitled  "  Appearance  and  Reality."     In  out- 
line it  is  as  follows  :  — 

All  those  aspects  of  our  experience  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  regard  as  indubitable  and  real  —  qualities  of  things,  the  rela- 
tions between  such,  things  themselves,  space,  time,  motion  and 
change,  causation,  activity,  the  self  —  turn  out  on  critical  exami- 
nation to  be  self-contradictory  and  absurd.  They  cannot,  hence, 
be  real  ;  they  must  be  something  unreal,  mere  appearance.3 

We  must,  however,  keep  fast  hold  upon  this,  that  appearances 
exist.  It  is  nonsense  to  deny  this.  And  whatever  exists  must 
belong  to  reality.4 

Now,  when  we  criticise  anything  as  untrue,  as  unreal,  we 
evidently  apply  a  criterion  of  reality.  Thus,  in  rejecting  the 
inconsistent,  as  appearance,  we  are  applying  a  positive  knowledge 
of  the  ultimate  nature  of  things.  Our  test  is  self-consistency. 
Reality  must  be  self-consistent.  And  as  appearance  must  belong 
to  reality,  it  must  be  concordant  and  other  than  it  seems.  The 

1 1  have  discussed  this  at  length  elsewhere  ;  see  "  The  Philosophy  of  Spinoza," 
New  York,  1894,  and  "On  Spinozistic  Immortality,"  Philadelphia,  1899. 

2  See  the  Introduction.  3  Chapters  I  to  XII.  4  pp.  131-132,  ed.  1897. 


Of  God  579 

bewildering  mass  of  phenomenal  diversity  must,  hence,  somehow 
be  at  unity  and  self -consistent ;  for  it  cannot  be  elsewhere  than 
in  reality,  and  reality  excludes  discord.  This  amounts  to  saying 
that  the  real  is  individual ;  it  is  one.1 

Our  result  so  far  is  this  :  "Everything  phenomenal  is  some- 
how real  ;  and  the  absolute  must  at  least  be  as  rich  as  the  relative. 
And,  further,  the  Absolute  is  not  many  ;  there  are  no  independent 
reals.  The  universe  is  one  in  this  sense  that  its  differences  exist 
harmoniously  within  one  whole,  beyond  which  there  is  nothing. 
Hence  the  Absolute  is,  so  far,  an  individual  and  a  system,  but,  if 
we  stop  here,  it  remains  but  formal  and  abstract.  Can  we  then, 
the  question  is,  say  anything  about  the  concrete  nature  of  the 
system  ? 

"  Certainly,  I  think,  this  is  possible.  When  we  ask  as  to  the 
matter  which  fills  up  the  empty  outline,  we  can  reply  in  one  word, 
that  this  matter  is  experience.  And  experience  means  something 
much  the  same  as  given  and  present  fact.  We  perceive,  on  reflec- 
tion, that  to  be  real,  or  even  barely  to  exist,  must  be  to  fall  within 
sentience.  Sentient  experience,  in  short,  is  reality,  and  what  is 
not  this  is  not  real.  We  may  say,  in  other  words,  that  there  is  no 
being  or  fact  outside  of  that  which  is  commonly  called  psychical 
existence.  Feeling,  thought,  and  volition  (any  groups  under 
which  we  class  psychical  phenomena)  are  all  the  material  of 
existence,  and  there  is  no  other  material  actual  or  even 
possible."2 

Thus,  "  the  Absolute  is  one  system,  and  its  contents  are  noth- 
ing but  sentient  experience.  It  will  hence  be  a  single  and  all- 
inclusive  experience,  which  embraces  every  partial  diversity  in 
concord.  For  it  cannot  be  less  than  appearance,  and  hence  no 
feeling  or  thought  of  any  kind  can  fall  outside  its  limits.  And 
if  it  is  more  than  any  feeling  and  thought  which  we  know,  it 
must  still  remain  more  of  the  same  nature.  It  cannot  pass  into 
another  region  beyond  what  falls  under  the  general  head  of 
sentience."3 

But  what  are  we  to  understand  this  Absolute,  this  one 
system,  as  including  ?  Mr.  Bradley's  answer  to  this  question 
is  so  significant  that  I  must  quote  it  at  length. 

"  Can  the  Absolute  be  said  to  consist  and  to  be  made  up  of 
souls  ?  The  question  is  ambiguous,  and  must  be  discussed  in  sev- 
1  Chapter  XIII.  2  p>  ^4.  a  pp.  146-147. 


580  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

eral  senses.  Is  there  —  let  us  ask  first  —  in  the  universe  any  sort 
of  matter  not  contained  in  finite  centres  of  experience  ?  It  seems 
at  first  sight  natural  to  point  at  once  to  the  relations  between 
these  centres.  But  such  relations,  we  find  on  reflection,  have 
been,  so  far,  included  in  the  perception  and  thought  of  the  centres 
themselves.  And  what  the  question  comes  to  is,  rather,  this,  Can 
there  be  matter  of  experience,  in  any  form,  which  does  not  enter 
as  an  element  into  some  finite  centre  ? 

"  In  view  of  our  ignorance  this  question  may  seem  unanswer- 
able. We  do  not  know  why  or  how  the  Absolute  divides  itself 
into  centres,  or  the  way  in  which,  so  divided,  it  still  remains  one. 
The  relation  of  the  many  experiences  to  the  single  experience,  and 
so  to  one  another,  is,  in  the  end,  beyond  us.  And,  if  so,  why 
should  there  not  be  elements  experienced  in  the  total,  and  yet  not 
experienced  within  any  subordinate  focus?  We  may,  indeed,  from 
the  other  side,  confront  this  ignorance  and  this  question  with  a 
doubt.  Has  such  an  unattachment  element,  or  margin  of  ele- 
ments, any  meaning  at  all  ?  Have  we  any  right  to  entertain  such 
an  idea  as  rational  ?  Does  not  our  ignorance  in  fact  forbid  us  to 
assume  the  possibility  of  any  matter  experienced  apart  from  a 
finite  whole  of  feeling  ?  But,  after  consideration,  I  do  not  find 
that  this  doubt  should  prevail.  Certainly  it  is  only  by  an  abstrac- 
tion that  I  can  form  the  idea  of  such  unattached  elements,  and 
this  abstraction,  it  may  seem,  is  not  legitimate.  And,  if  the  ele- 
ments were  taken  as  quite  loose,  if  they  were  not  still  inseparable 
factors  in  a  whole  of  experience,  then  the  abstraction  clearly  would 
lead  to  an  inconsistent  idea.  And  such  an  idea,  we  have  agreed, 
must  not  be  regarded  as  possible.  But,  in  the  present  case,  the  ele- 
ments, unattached  to  any  finite  centre,  are  still  subordinate  to  and 
integral  aspects  of  the  Whole.  And,  since  this  Whole  is  one  ex- 
perience, the  position  is  altered.  The  abstraction  from  a  finite 
centre  does  not  lead  visibly  to  self-contradiction.  And  hence  I 
cannot  refuse  to  regard  its  result  as  possible. 

"  But  this  possibility,  on  the  other  side,  seems  to  have  no  im- 
portance. If  we  take  it  to  be  fact,  we  shall  not  find  that  it  makes 
much  difference  to  the  Whole.  And,  again,  for  so  taking  it  there 
appears  to  be  almost  no  ground.  Let  us  briefly  consider  these 
two  points.  That  elements  of  experience  should  be  unattached 
would  (\ve  saw)  be  a  serious  matter,  if  they  were  unattached  alto- 
gether and  absolutely.  But  since  in  any  case  all  comes  together 


Of  God  581 

and  is  fused  in  the  Whole,  and  since  this  Whole  in  any  case  is  a 
single  experience,  the  main  result  appears  to  me  to  be  quite  un- 
affected. The  fact  that  some  experience-matter  does  not  directly 
qualify  any  finite  centre  is  a  fact  from  which  I  can  draw  no  further 
conclusion.  But  for  holding  this  fact,  in  the  second  place,  there 
is  surely  no  good  reason.  The  number  of  finite  centres  and  their 
diversity  is  (we  know)  very  great,  and  we  may  fairly  suppose  it  to 
extend  much  beyond  our  knowledge.  Nor  do  the  relations,  which 
are  '  between '  these  centres,  occasion  difficulty.  Relations  of  course 
cannot  fall  somewhere  outside  of  reality  ;  and,  if  they  really  were 
'  between  '  the  centres,  we  should  have  to  assume  some  matter  of  ex- 
perience external  and  additional  to  these.  The  conclusion  would  fol- 
low ;  and  we  have  seen  that,  rightly  understood,  it  is  possible.  But, 
as  things  are,  it  seems  no  less  gratuitous.  There  is  nothing,  so  far 
as  I  see,  to  suggest  that  any  aspect  of  any  relation  lies  outside  the 
experience-matter  contained  in  finite  centres.  The  relations,  as 
such,  do  not  and  cannot  exist  in  the  Absolute.  And  the  question 
is  whether  that  higher  experience,  which  contains  and  transforms 
the  relations,  demands  any  element  not  experienced  somehow 
within  the  centres.  For  assuming  such  an  element  I  can  myself 
perceive  no  ground.  And  since,  even  if  we  assume  this,  the  main 
result  seems  to  remain  unaltered,  the  best  course  is,  perhaps,  to 
discard  it  as  unreal.  It  is  better,  on  the  whole,  to  conclude  that 
no  element  of  Reality  falls  outside  the  experience  of  finite  centres. 

"  Are  we  then  to  assert  that  the  Absolute  consists  of  souls  ? 
That,  in  my  opinion,  for  two  reasons  would  be  incorrect.  A 
centre  of  experience,  first,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  either  a  soul 
or,  again,  a  self.  It  need  not  contain  the  distinction  of  not-self 
from  self  ;  and,  whether  it  contains  that  or  not,  in  neither  case  is 
it  properly  a  self.  It  will  be  either  below,  or  else  wider  than  and 
above,  the  distinction.  And  a  soul,  as  we  have  seen,  is  always  the 
creature  of  an  intellectual  construction.  It  cannot  be  the  same 
thing  with  a  mere  centre  of  immediate  experience.  Nor  again  can 
we  affirm  that  every  centre  implies  and  entails  in  some  sense  a 
corresponding  soul.  For  the  duration  of  such  centres  may  per- 
haps be  so  momentary,  that  no  one,  except  to  save  a  theory,  could 
call  them  souls.  Hence  we  cannot  maintain  that  souls  contain 
all  the  matter  of  experience  which  fills  the  world. 

"  And  in  any  case,  secondly,  the  Absolute  would  not  consist 
of  souls.  Such  a  phrase  implies  a  mode  of  union  which  we  can- 


582  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

not  regard  as  ultimate.  It  suggests  that  in  the  Absolute  finite 
centres  are  maintained  and  respected,  and  that  we  may  consider 
them,  as  such,  to  persist  and  to  be  merely  ordered  and  arranged. 
But  not  like  this  (we  have  seen)  is  the  final  destiny  and  last 
truth  of  things.  We  have  a  rearrangement  not  merely  of  things 
but  of  their  internal  elements.  We  have  an  all-pervasive  trans- 
fusion with  a  reblending  of  all  material.  And  we  can  hardly 
say  that  the  Absolute  consists  of  finite  things,  when  the  things, 
as  such,  are  there  transmuted  and  have  lost  their  individual 
natures."  l 

I  must  frankly  confess  that  Mr.  Bradley's  argument  appears 
to  me  so  loose  in  its  texture  and  so  vague  in  its  conclusion  that 
I  cannot  but  marvel  that  it  has  seemed  to  any  one  a  satisfactory 
argument  for  God.  All  those  things  that  Mr.  Bradley  has  set 
aside  as  mere  appearance  —  space,  time,  motion,  causality,  activity, 
and  the  rest  —  seem,  I  think,  self-contradictory  only  to  one  who 
has  made  a  half-analysis  of  them,  and  has  fallen  into  the  usual 
confusions  of  those  who  make  half-analyses.  And  what  shall  we 
make  of  the  statement  that  these  things,  although  they  are  not 
real,  exist?  Have  they  real  existence  ?  No,  their  existence  must 
be  merely  apparent  existence.  But  what  is  apparent  existence  ? 
What  is  the  difference  between  it  and  real  existence  ?  Surely  it 
is  desirable  that  we  be  treated  to  a  clear  analysis  of  both  of  these 
conceptions  before  they  be  allowed  to  play  their  part  in  the 
argument  laid  before  us.  And  how  understand  the  assertion  that 
appearance  must  belong  to  reality  ?  As  it  stands  it  is  vagueness 
itself.  We  shall  see  whether  it  becomes  any  less  vague  in  the 
sequel. 

"  Reality,"  says  Mr.  Bradley,  "  must  be  self-consistent.  And 
as  appearance  must  belong  to  reality,  it  must  be  concordant  and 
other  than  it  seems."  Is  this  a  roundabout  way  of  saying  that 
appearance  is  reality  ?  If  appearance  belongs  to  reality  in  some 
loose  sense  of  the  word,  why  may  not  reality  be  consistent  and 
appearance  remain  inconsistent  ?  And  how  can  an  appearance  be 
"  other  than  it  seems  "  ?  When  we  have  gotten  to  the  other,  are 
we  still  dealing  with  the  appearance  ?  And  is  it  possible  to  be 
"  in  reality  "  without  being  real  ? 

As  the  reader  must  see,  Mr.  Bradley's  argument  moves  in  a 
cloud  of  vague  and  unanalyzed  conceptions  which  it  is  the  first 

1  pp.  526-529. 


Of  God  583 

duty  of  the  metaphysician  to  dissect.  But  I  must  not  loiter. 
Mr.  Bradley  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  Reality,  the  Absolute, 
is  one  system  to  which  every  appearance  "somehow"  belongs. 
Having  gotten  so  far,  he  falls  into  the  idealistic  blunder  of 
rejecting  the  only  thing  which  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  have 
a  universe,  a  cosmos,  a  system  of  things  at  all  —  he  denies  the 
existence  of  an  external  world  :  "  there  is  no  being  or  fact  out- 
side of  that  which  is  commonly  called  psychical  existence." 

I  have  discussed  this  blunder  at  such  length  in  previous 
chapters,  that  it  would  be  unpardonable  for  me  to  dwell  upon 
it  here.  But  the  reader  will  remember  that,  to  one  who  holds 
firmly  to  an  external  world,  and  who  realizes  what  is  meant  by 
psychical  existence  as  distinguished  from  physical,  it  is  not  un- 
meaning to  speak  of  a  system  of  things.  To  him  there  are  external 
things  and  there  are  minds  ;  the  external  things  form  a  system, 
and  the  minds  are  related  to  bodies  in  that  system,  and  thus  to 
each  other,  in  certain  definite  ways  which  can  with  some  clear- 
ness be  indicated.  There  is  no  phenomenon  which  may  not  (theo- 
retically) be  assigned  its  place  in  that  system.  It  is  a  system 
which  seems  to  be  recognized  by  science  and  common  sense. 

Of  such  a  system  Mr.  Bradley's  denial  of  an  external  world 
deprives  him.  He  seems  to  have  nothing  left  on  his  hands  save 
a  plurality  of  minds,  "  centres  of  experience,"  which  must  be  held 
together  by  a  "somehow."  He  cannot  even  call  upon  Berkeley's 
God  to  bring  order  out  of  this  chaos,  for  he  does  not  believe  in 
Berkeley's  God.  Reality,  the  Absolute,  contains  nothing  that 
does  not  fall  within  the  experience  of  finite  centres  ;  in  other 
words,  there  is  nothing  in  the  Absolute  which  is  not  in  finite 
minds. 

To  the  plain  man  such  a  statement  as  this  can  only  mean  that 
the  Absolute  consists  of  the  total  contents  of  finite  minds,  taking 
this  word  in  its  broadest  sense.  But  Mr.  Bradley  objects  to  the 
use  of  the  word  "  consist"  in  this  connection.  The  contents  of  finite 
minds  must  undergo  "  an  all-pervasive  transfusion  with  a  reblend- 
ing  of  all  material  "  before  we  have  the  Absolute  ;  and  under  this 
treatment  finite  things  must  be  "  transmuted  "  and  must  "  lose  their 
individual  natures." 

Now,  I  beg  the  reader  to  ask  himself  seriously  whether,  when 
we  have  denied  the  existence  of  an  external  world  ;  when  we 
have  refused  to  admit  the  existence  of  anything  outside  of  a 


584  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

number  of  finite  minds  apparently  wholly  disconnected  with  each 
other  ;  when  we  have  "  transmuted  "  the  contents  of  such  minds 
until  they  have  "•  lost  their  individual  natures  "  ;  when,  that  is, 
we  have  so  altered  qualities  of  things,  relations,  space,  time, 
causality,  motion,  change,  activity,  the  self,  that  in  the  end  no 
one  of  them  is,  in  Pyrrhonic  phrase,  "  any  more  this  than  that "  ; 
—  I  beg  the  reader  to  ask  himself  seriously  whether,  when  we 
have  done  all  this,  we  may  conclude  that  we  have  been  moving 
in  the  direction  of  anything  that  the  broadest  charity  can  dignify 
by  the  name  of  a  "  system,"  a  universe,  an  order  of  things  ? 

And  I  also  beg  the  reader  to  ask  himself,  whether  the  result- 
ing confusion,  the  "all-pervasive  transfusion"  of  the  contents  of 
finite  minds,  is  what  men  mean,  and  what  in  the  past  centuries 
they  have  meant,  by  the  word  "  God  "  ? 

To  be  sure,  men  have  used  the  word  in  many  senses,  —  it  has 
not  meant  precisely  the  same  thing  to  the  rustic  and  to  the  scholar, 
to  the  mediseval  monk  and  to  the  modern  man  of  science,  to  the 
Jew,  to  the  Moslem,  and  to  the  Christian.  Nevertheless,  the 
fluctuations  in  the  meaning  of  the  word  have  not  been,  as  a  rule, 
lawless  and  limitless.  Men  generally  have  conceived  God  to  be  a 
Mind  revealed  in  the  world,  and  they  have  conceived  of  that  Mind 
after  the  analogy  of  the  human  mind  —  sometimes  with  many 
apologies  for  having  done  so. 

When  a  thinker  has,  advertently  or  inadvertently,  quite  aban- 
doned this  thought,  and  when  it  has  become  clear  to  others  that 
he  has  abandoned  it,  he  has  failed  to  carry  men  with  him.  They 
have  recognized  that  he  has  not  brought  them  a  fuller  revelation 
of  the  Deity  which  they  ignorantly  worship,  but  has  placed  before 
them  a  Pseudo-God,  a  something  that  can  only  by  a  confusion  be 
identified  with  the  Being  that  men  have  called  God,  and  which 
they  have  conceived  to  be  a  Mind.  Whether  it  has  been  a  group 
of  universals,  or  the  empty  Plotinic  "  One,"  or  the  something  to 
which  John  Scotus  on  the  one  hand  denied  being  and  which  he 
on  the  other  affirmed  to  be  "  truth,  goodness,  essence,  light,  jus- 
tice, sun,  star,  air,  water,  lion,  town,  worm,  and  countless  other 
things  "  among  which  are  included  drunkenness,  foolishness,  and 
madness  ;  whether  it  has  been  the  object  of  the  negative  theology 
of  Meister  Eckhart,  or  the  Absolute  of  Mansel  and  Spencer  ;  it 
has  not  been  accepted  as  God  ;  and,  I  think,  with  entire  justice. 

Most  thoughtful   persons  who   believe   in  God  are   ready  to 


Of  God  585 

admit  that  their  knowledge  of  Him  is  very  imperfect ;  at  the 
same  time,  their  thought,  when  they  use  the  word,  is  at  least 
sufficiently  definite  to  enable  them  to  say  with  some  decision  that 
there  are  certain  things  that  it  does  not  mean  to  them,  and  that  it 
has  not  meant  to  those  who  have  preceded  them.  They  observe 
with  a  certain  wonder  that  those  who  bring  forward  such  concep- 
tions of  God  retain  the  religious  emotions  that  have  sprung  from 
and  that  seem  appropriate  to  a  conception  of  a  very  different 
kind.  They  can  only  explain  the  fact  by  supposing,  either  that 
such  writers  have  been  unduly  influenced  by  the  associations  that 
hover  about  certain  words,  or  that  they  really  admit  into  their 
conception  elements  that  a  strict  logical  consistency  would 
exclude  from  it. 

I  now  turn  to  an  examination  of  the  demonstration  of  God's 
existence  offered  us  by  Professor  Royce.  It  is  my  last  illustration. 

We  men,  says  Professor  Royce,  as  we  have  wrought  upon  the 
data  of  our  senses,  have  gradually  woven  a  vast  web  of  what  we 
call  relatively  connected,  united,  or  organized  knowledge.  This 
organized  knowledge  has  a  curious  relation  to  our  more  direct 
experience.  Whenever  it  is  best  developed,  we  find  it  under- 
taking to  deal  with  a  world  of  truth,  of  so-called  reality,  or  at 
least  of  apparent  truth  and  reality,  which  is  very  remote  from  the 
actual  sensory  data  that  any  man  of  us  has  ever  beheld.  Our 
organized  science  deals  very  largely  with  conceived  —  with  ideal 
—  realities  that  transcend  actual  human  observation.  Atoms, 
ether- waves,  geological  periods,  processes  of  evolution,  —  these  are 
to-day  some  of  the  most  important  constituents  of  our  conceived 
phenomenal  universe.1 

This  realm  would  be  a  mere  world  of  fantastic  shadows  if  we 
had  not  good  reason  to  say  these  ideas,  these  laws,  these  prin- 
ciples, these  ideal  objects  of  science,  remote  as  they  seem  from 
our  momentary  sensory  experiences,  still  have  a  real,  and  in  the 
end,  a  verifiable  relation  to  actual  experience.  We  use  the 
scientific  conceptions  because  we  can  verify  their  reality.  And 
to  verify  must  mean  to  confirm  in  sensory  terms.  To  be  sure, 
such  verification  has  to  be  for  us  men  an  extremely  indirect  one.2 

But  our  direct  experience,  as  it  actually  comes,  is  but  a  heap 
of  fragments.  When  we  say  that  science  reduces  our  experience 
to  order,  we  are  still  talking  in  relatively  ideal  terms.  Science 
1  "  The  Conception  of  God,"  Xew  York,  1902,  p.  23.  2  p.  24. 


586  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

does  not  succeed  in  reducing  the  chaos  of  our  finite  sensory  life 
to  any  directly  presented  orderly  wholeness.1 

Thus,  "  all  our  actual  sensory  experience  comes  in  passing 
moments,  and  is  fragmentary.  Our  science,  wherever  it  has 
taken  any  form,  contrasts  with  this  immediate  fragmentariness  of 
our  experience  the  assertion  of  a  world  of  phenomenal  truth, 
which  is  first  of  all  characterized  by  the  fact  that  for  us  it  is  a 
conceptual  world,  and  not  a  world  directly  experienced  by  any 
one  of  us.  Yet  this  ideal  world  is  not  an  arbitrary  world.  It  is 
linked  to  our  actual  experience  by  the  fact  that  its  conceptions 
are  accounts,  as  exact  as  may  be,  of  systems  of  possible  experience, 
whose  contents  would  be  presented,  in  a  certain  form  and  order, 
to  beings  whom  we  conceive  as  including  our  fragmentary  mo- 
ments in  some  sort  of  definite  unity  of  experience.  That  these 
scientific  accounts  of  this  world  of  organized  experience  are  true, 
at  least  in  a  measure,  we  are  said  to  verify  in  so  far  as,  first,  we 
predict  that,  if  they  are  true,  certain  other  fragmentary  phenom- 
ena will  get  presented  to  us  under  certain  definable  conditions, 
and  in  so  far  as,  secondly,  we  successfully  proceed  to  fulfil  such 
predictions.  Thus  all  of  our  knowledge  of  natural  truth  depends 
upon  contrasting  our  actually  fragmentary  and  stubbornly  chaotic 
individual  and  momentary  experience  with  a  conceived  world 
of  organized  experience,  inclusive  of  all  our  fragments,  but 
reduced  in  its  wholeness  to  some  sort  of  all-embracing  unity. 
The  contents  and  objects  of  this  unified  experience,  we  discover 
first  by  means  of  hypotheses  as  to  what  these  contents  and  objects 
are,  and  then  by  means  of  verifications  which  depend  upon  a  suc- 
cessful retranslation  of  our  hypotheses  as  to  organized  experience 
into  terms  which  our  fragmentary  experience  can,  under  certain 
conditions,  once  more  fulfil."2 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  what  we  mean  by 
human  ignorance.  It  is  the  contrast  of  our  supposed  indirect 
knowledge  of  the  contents  of  the  ideal  organized  experience  de- 
scribed above  with  our  direct  and  actual,  but  fragmentary,  passing 
experience,  that  enables  us  to  confess  our  ignorance.  We  accuse  our 
direct  experience  of  illusory  fragmentariness,  because  we  contrast 
the  contents  of  our  individual  experience,  not  with  any  mere  reality 
apart  from  any  possible  experience,  but  with  the  conceived  object 
of  an  ideal  organized  experience,  —  an  object  conceived  to  be  pres- 

1  p.  25.  2  pp.  27-28. 


Of  God  587 

ent  to  that  experience  as  directly  as  our  sensory  experiences  are 
present  to  us.1 

Is  there  any  such  real  unity  of  organized  experience?  The 
question  "  is  precisely  equivalent  to  the  question  :  Is  there,  not 
as  a  mere  possibility,  but  as  a  genuine  truth,  any  reality  ?  The 
question  :  Is  there  an  absolutely  organized  experience  ?  is  equiva- 
lent to  the  question  :  Is  there  an  absolute  reality  ?  You  cannot 
first  say  :  There  is  a  reality  now  unknown  to  us  mortals,  and  then 
go  on  to  ask  whether  there  is  an  experience  to  which  such  reality 
is  presented.  The  terms  '  reality  '  and  '  organized  experience  ' 
are  correlative  terms.  The  one  can  only  be  denned  as  the  object, 
the  content,  of  the  other.  Drop  either,  and  the  other  vanishes. 
Make  one  a  bare  ideal,  and  the  other  becomes  equally  such.  If 
the  organized  experience  is  a  bare  and  ideal  possibility,  then  the 
reality  is  a  mere  seeming.  If  what  I  ought  to  experience,  and 
should  experience  were  I  not  ignorant,  remains  only  a  possibility, 
then  there  is  no  absolute  reality,  but  only  possibility,  in  the  uni- 
verse, apart  from  your  passing  feelings  and  mine.  Our  actual 
issue,  then,  is  :  Does  a  real  world  ultimately  exist  at  all  ?  If  it 
does,  then  it  exists  as  the  object  of  some  sort  of  concretely  actual 
organized  experience,  of  the  general  type  which  our  science  indi- 
rectly and  ideally  defines,  only  of  this  type  carried  to  its  absolute 
limit  of  completeness."2 

Now,  what  is  the  proof  of  the  reality  of  such  an  absolute  expe- 
rience ?  Let  us  grant,  for  the  moment,  that  there  is  no  universal 
experience  as  a  concrete  fact,  but  only  the  finite  experience,  with 
its  hope  and  endeavor  to  win  it,  with  its  error.  What  will  this 
mean  ?  The  fragmentariness  and  error  of  this  finite  experience 
will  be  a  fact,  a  truth,  a  reality,  and,  as  such,  just  the  absolute  truth. 
But  this  absolute  truth  will  exist  for  whose  experience  ?  For  the 
finite  experience  ?  No,  for  although  our  finite  experience  knows 
itself  to  be  limited,  still,  just  in  so  far  as  it  is  finite,  it  cannot  know 
that  there  is  no  unity  beyond  its  fragmentariness.  If,  then,  there 
is  no  universal  experience,  this  truth  will  be  a  truth  nowhere  pre- 
sented —  a  truth  for  nobody  :  "  to  assert  a  truth  as  more  than 
possible  is  to  assert  the  concrete  reality  of  an  experience  that  knows 
this  truth."  Hence,  there  must  be  an  absolute  experience;  the  very 
effort  to  assert  that  the  whole  of  experience  is  a  world  of  fragmen- 
tary and  finite  experience  is  an  effort  involving  a  contradiction.3 
1  pp.  28-30.  2  pp.  35-35.  3  pp.  39-41. 


588  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

I  cannot  but  think  that  the  above  argument  rests  upon  certain 
confusions  which  arise  out  of  an  insufficient  analysis  of  concep- 
tions. To  criticise  it  in  full  would  compel  me  to  repeat  what  I 
have  said  in  previous  chapters  touching  the  nature  of  the  external 
world,  the  meaning  of  the  verb  "  to  exist  "  as  applied  to  material 
things,  the  distinction  between  the  world  and  minds  which  are 
supposed  to  know  the  world,  and  the  nature  of  the  argument  by 
which  we  establish  the  existence  of  other  minds  than  our  own.  I 
must  not,  of  course,  do  this  ;  but  I  can  at  least  indicate  what  seem 
to  me  the  weak  points  in  the  argument,  and  leave  my  reader  to 
supplement  my  criticism  by  a  reference  to  the  analyses  that  I  have 
made  before. 

The  argument  begins  by  drawing  the  distinction  between  the 
sensory  experience  of  the  individual  and  the  world  of  phenomenal 
truth  to  which  science  testifies.  Here  we  have  a  contrast  between 
the  subjective  order  of  phenomena  and  the  objective  order  — 
between  the  mind  and  the  external  world. 

It  is  important  that  he  who  draws  this  distinction  should  rec- 
ognize clearly  all  that  it  implies.  He  should  keep  himself  mind- 
ful of  the  fact  that,  when  we  occupy  ourselves  with  the  phenomena 
of  the  objective  order,  we  should  be  careful  to  divest  them  of  that 
subjective  reference  that  marks  the  phenomena  of  the  subjective 
order.  He  should  remember  that  nothing  that  can  legitimately 
be  conceived  to  belong  to  the  external  world  can  justly  be  called 
a  sensation,  a  percept,  or  a  mental  phenomenon  of  any  description. 
These  words  have  a  definite  meaning  of  their  own  which  may  not 
be  disregarded  —  it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  a  sensation  as  on  a  shelf, 
or  of  a  percept  as  under  a  table. 

Again.  The  argument  notes  the  fact  that  the  world  of  phe- 
nomenal truth  to  which  science  testifies  is,  for  ws,  largely  a  concep- 
tual world,  i.e.  the  enormous  complex  of  individual  phenomena 
of  which  we  conceive  it  to  be  made  up  is  not  known  intuitively 
but  known  largely  through  representative  symbols. 

The  remark  is  a  just  one.  The  objective  order  of  phenomena 
is  not  to  be  confounded  with  a  symbolic  representation  of  that 
order  in  any  mind,  i.e.  with  certain  phenomena  in  the  subjective 
order.  At  the  same  time,  it  ought  also  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that, 
if  any  mind  could  contain  such  a  fulness  of  sensational  experi- 
ences that  knowing  by  means  of  symbols  became  unnecessary, 
such  a  fulness  that  the  objective  order  could  be  directly  mirrored 


Of  God  589 

in  the  subjective,  the  contents  of  such  a  mind  would  by  no  means 
be  identical  with  the  external  world.  We  should  have,  not  the 
external  world,  but  a  complete  intuitive  knowledge,  of  the  external 
world.  What  is  the  difference  between  them  ?  The  difference  is 
that,  in  the  one  case,  we  are  talking  of  sensational  experiences  of  a 
mind,  and,  in  the  other  case,  such  subjective  reference  has  been 
stripped  away.  We  have  no  right  to  use  the  word  "  sensation " 
or  the  word  "mind,"  without  due  regard  to  the  significance  that 
properly  attaches  to  such  words. 

Now,  we  conceive  the  external  world  to  be  an  immense  com- 
plex of  individual  phenomena.  Our  mind  contains  a  very  inade- 
quate representation  of  such  a  complex.  Does  the  complex 
exist  f  Here  Professor  Royce  appears  to  me  to  make  two  serious 
mistakes.  First,  he  argues  that,  as  we  are  not  concerned  with 
an  Unknowable,  but  with  such  a  world  as  seems  to  be  given  in  an 
unsatisfactory  way  in  our  sensations,  with  an  experience,  we  may 
assume  that  it  can  only  exist  in  a  mind.  Can  there  be  an  experi- 
ence except  as  it  is  experienced  f  If,  then,  there  is  a  real  world 
such  as  science  testifies  to,  there  is  a  mind  in  which  it  exists,  i.e. 
God;  or,  if  one  so  prefers  to  express  it,  it  is  a  Divine  Mind. 
Second,  he  tries  to  offer  a  proof  that  there  is  an  external  world. 

It  will  be  observed  that  Professor  Royce's  first  error  is  an  old 
one.  Nearly  two  hundred  years  ago  Berkeley  distinguished  be- 
tween things  as  we  perceive  them  —  our  fugitive  perceptions  of 
things  —  and  things  as  continuously  existing.  As  I  have  pointed 
out  earlier,  the  distinction  between  the  subjective  order  and  the 
objective  was  not  clear  to  him,  and  he  conceived  that  nothing 
could  exist  save  percepts.  That  things  existed  independently  of 
his  percepts,  he  could  not  but  believe.  Hence,  he  assumed  a 
Divine  Mind  in  which  they  could  exist  as  percepts  when  he  was 
not  perceiving  them. 

Berkeley  was  misled  in  part  by  the  word  "  idea  " ;  Professor 
Royce  is  misled  in  part  by  the  associations  of  the  word  "experi- 
ence." If  we  cannot  know  the  external  world  except  as  it  is  our 
"  experience,"  —  our  sensations,  a  content  in  our  mind,  —  we  can- 
not know  the  external  world  at  all,  and  we  cannot  even  speak 
with  a  meaning  of  "our  sensations,"  as  I  have  tried  to  show  at 
length  in  Chapter  XXIII.  If,  however,  we  decide  to  use  the 
word  "  experience "  in  a  broad  sense,  and  as  covering  both  the 
phenomena  of  the  subjective  order  and  the  phenomena  of  the  ob- 


590  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

jective  order,  we  must  remember  that  it  applies  both  to  what  is 
mental  and  to  what  is  not  mental,  but  physical.  What  has  really 
nisled  both  Bishop  Berkeley  and  Professor  Royce  is  the  fact  that 
there  is  no  phenomenon  in  the  objective  order  which  may  not  con- 
ceivably take  its  place  in  the  subjective  order.  But  we  must  not 
forget  that,  when  it  has  its  place  in  the  subjective  order,  when  it 
is  regarded  as  sensation  or  as  percept,  it  is  no  part  of  the  external 
world. 

It  is  well  for  the  reader  to  remember  in  this  connection  that 
minds  do  not  directly  perceive  each  other  even  in  a  fragmentary 
way.  I  may  not  directly  perceive  very  much  of  the  external 
world,  but  Professor  Royce  himself  allows  me  glimpses  of  it.  Of 
another  mind,  I  have  not  even  glimpses  directly  given  in  my 
experience  —  everything  is  matter  of  inference.  If  the  external 
world  of  science  really  were  a  mind,  an  experience  in  the  narrower 
sense,  a  consciousness,  a  direct  sense-knowledge  of  it  would  be  an 
absurdity.  It  is  a  stepping-stone  to  a  knowledge  of  other  minds, 
as  we  have  seen  in  previous  chapters,  but  a  mind  it  is  not,  nor 
does  its  existence  have  to  be  proved  as  we  must  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  every  mind  except  our  own.  And  this  brings  me  to  what 
I  conceive  to  be  Professor  Royce's  second  error,  —  the  attempt  to 
prove  the  existence  of  the  external  world. 

Professor  Royce  himself  points  out  that  the  phenomenal  world 
to  which  science  testifies  is  not  an  arbitrary  world.  It  is  linked 
to  our  actual  experience.  That  the  scientific  accounts  of  this 
world  are  true,  at  least  in  a  measure,  we  are  said  to  verify  in  so 
far  as  we  start  from  given  experiences,  frame  hypotheses,  predict 
other  experiences,  and  fulfil  these  predictions. 

But  what  does  this  mean?  It  means  that  the  experiences  in 
question  do  belong  to  a  certain  order,  the  objective  order,  and  can 
be  proved  to  belong  to  this.  They  have  their  place  in  a  system. 
Can  we,  however,  be  sure  that  the  parts  of  the  system  not  directly 
perceived  exist  ? 

This  question  we  ought  not  to  attempt  to  answer  without 
examining  carefully  what  we  can  mean  by  the  assertion  that  any- 
thing exists,  really  exists.  I  have  tried  to  show  earlier,  in  dis- 
cussing the  nature  of  the  external  world,  that  when  we  speak  of 
any  physical  thing  as  really  existing,  we  mean  no  more  than  the 
assertion  of  its  right  to  a  place  in  the  objective  order.  We  do 
not  mean  that  it  is  perceived  —  that  is  a  very  different  thing  ;  it 


Of  God  591 

may  be  perceived  or  it  may  not  be  perceived  ;  that  has  nothing- 
to  do  with  its  right  to  a  place  in  the  order  of  nature.  We  do 
not  mean  that  it  is  any  one's  sensation  ;  what  it  must  mean  to  be 
any  one's  sensation,  I  have  explained  at  length.  Thus,  real  exist- 
ence in  the  external  world  is  guaranteed  to  any  phenomenon 
only  in  one  way  —  the  phenomenon  in  question  must  belong  to 
a  certain  order  of  phenomena  which  is  contrasted  with,  and 
should  never  be  confused  with,  another  order  of  phenomena,  the 
subjective. 

This  is  true  of  every  single  phenomenon  which  is  referred  to 
the  external  world.  It  is  as  true  of  our  direct  experiences  as  of 
those  things  arrived  at  by  inference.  This  desk  before  me  really 
exists.  What  can  this  mean?  It  means  that  certain  phenomena 
are  referred  to  the  objective  order.  Abstract  this  reference  and 
the  words  become  quite  meaningless.  The  real  existence  of  this 
one  experience  is  not  a  something  independent  of  all  other  expe- 
riences. Men  have  often  enough  had  what  they  supposed  to  be 
direct  experiences  of  external  things,  and  have  by  later  experi- 
ences been  compelled  to  relegate  them  to  the  realm  of  hallucination. 

Now  the  phenomena  of  the  objective  order  are  as  immediately 
known  as  the  phenomena  of  the  subjective  order.  That  is  to  say, 
we  do  not  start  with  sensations  and  infer  an  external  world. 
What  is  a  sensation  ?  No  answer  can  be  given  that  does  not 
recognize  an  external  world  and  a  mind  contrasted  with  it.  What 
can  one  mean  by  the  phrase  "  my  fragmentary  experiences  "  ?  It 
is  absolutely  meaningless  if  we  abstract  from  this  same  contrast. 
Can  one  say  :  Let  us  assume,  for  the  moment,  that  nothing  exists, 
save  my  fragmentary  experiences  ?  The  man  who  says  this  should 
make  clear  to  himself  what  he  understands  by  the  word  "  exist,"  by 
the  word  "  my,"  and  by  the  word  "  experience."  When  he  has  made 
this  clear,  he  will  realize  that  he  is  only  making  a  feint  of  throw- 
ing away  something.  He  is  assuming  his  direct  experiences,  his 
sensations,  to  exist.  How  does  he  know  these  to  be  direct  experi- 
ences, sensations?  Only  by  reference  to  what  he  pretends  to  have 
thrown  away. 

But  shall  we  not  admit  that  the  external  world,  the  objective 
order  of  phenomena,  is  known  by  us  largely  by  means  of  symbols  ? 
Of  course.  Let  us,  however,  admit  that  the  subjective  order,  our 
own  mind,  is  known  by  us  largely  by  means  of  symbols,  as  well. 
My  "  fragmentary  experiences  "  of  the  world  are  not,  as  a  whole, 


592  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

present  to  me  intuitively.  The  sensations  which  I  have  experi- 
enced during  the  past  year,  the  past  month,  the  past  week,  cannot 
possibly  be  represented  by  me  in  a  single  intuition.  What  is 
actually  in  the  sense  at  this  present  moment  is  a  very  small  part 
of  "my  fragmentary  experiences."  Shall  I  assume  that  the  rest 
have  existed,  even  if  they  do  not  now  exist  ?  What  is  meant  by 
this  past  and  this  present  f  Is  there  a  real  time,  and  have  these 
sensations  really  existed  in  real  time  ?  The  truth  is  that  he  who 
would  withdraw  himself  from  the  system  of  things,  in  order  to 
prove  that  there  is  a  system  of  things,  never  really  withdraws 
himself  from  that  system  for  a  moment.  He  only  pretends  to 
do  so. 

It  is,  then,  absurd  to  try  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  external 
world.  We  know  it  as  directly  as  we  know  our  own  minds.  Do 
we  know  as  much  of  it  as  we  know  of  our  own  minds  ?  That  is 
a  different  question.  But  it  is  well  to  remember  that  we  cannot 
start  an  argument  with  "our  experiences";  that  our  experiences 
are  in  large  measure  symbolically  known  by  us  ;  and  that  the 
psychologist  has  laboriously  to  establish  for  us  what  our  experi- 
ences are,  much  as  the  physicist  establishes  for  us  what  exists 
in  the  external  world. 

It  appears  to  me  that  these  distinctions  have  not  been  clearly 
grasped  by  Professor  Royce.  He  asks  :  What  is  the  proof  of 
the  reality  of  an  absolute  experience,  i.e.  of  a  real  external 
world  ?  And  he  answers  this  question  as  follows  :  Let  us  sup- 
pose nothing  exists  save  our  finite  experience.  This  then,  is 
absolute  truth,  that  there  is  nothing  but  this  fragmentary  expe- 
rience. But  if  it  is  truth,  it  must  be  true  for  somebody.  It  is 
not  true  for  us,  for  we  do  not  know  whether  the  fact  is  as  stated. 
It  must  be  true  for  somebody.  There  is  then  an  absolute  expe- 
rience for  whom  it  is  true. 

This  I  must  briefly  criticise,  in  the  light  of  what  has  been 
said  above,  as  follows  :  (1)  The  reality  of  the  phenomena,  which 
Professor  Royce  does  not  include  in  our  fragmentary  expe- 
riences, but  to  which  science  testifies,  does  not  have  to  be  proved 
in  any  other  way  than  by  showing  that  they  severally  do  have 
their  place  in  the  order  recognized  by  science  and  by  the  plain  man. 
Their  place  in  that  order  is  the  only  conceivable  guarantee  of 
their  reality.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  we  must  first 
show  that  they  belong  to  the  order  in  question,  and  then  go  on  to 


Of  God  593 

prove  that  they  are  real.  (2)  It  is  not  legitimate  to  begin  an 
argument  with  the  supposition  that,  beyond  our  finite  experience, 
nothing  exists.  By  "  our  finite  experience  "  is  presumably  meant 
the  fragmentary  sensory  experiences  with  which  the  argument 
has  been  concerned.  Abstracted  from  the  system  of  things,  these 
experiences  cannot  be  called  fragmentary,  cannot  be  recognized 
as  sensory,  and  cannot  be  said  to  have  real  existence.  (3)  The 
statement  that,  if  it  be  true  that  nothing  exists  save  these  frag- 
ments, it  must  be  true  to  somebody,  is  an  ingenious  but  very 
questionable  adaptation  of  the  Berkeleian  error  that  there  can  be 
no  existence  save  mental  existence. 

The  last  turn  in  the  argument  is  not,  I  think,  convincing  even 
to  those  who  may  be  inclined  to  agree  with  Berkeley  in  thinking 
that  nothing  can  exist  save  in  a  mind.  We  are  to  permit  the 
solipsist 1  to  guarantee  himself  society  by  reasoning  thus  :  Either 
somebody  exists  besides  myself  or  nobody  exists  besides  myself. 
I  shall  assume  that  nobody  exists  besides  myself.  This  then  is 
true.  But,  if  it  is  true,  it  must  be  true  to  somebody.  It  is 
not  true  to  me,  for  I  am  ignorant  touching  this  matter.  Hence, 
somebody  exists  besides  myself. 

What  is  the  matter  with  this  argument  ?  We  can  best  answer 
this  question  when  we  have  seen  with  some  clearness  what  it 
means  to  say  that  this  or  that  is  true. 

Suppose  I  ask  myself  whether  it  is  true  that  there  are  moun- 
tains on  the  other  side  of  the  moon.  What  can  this  mean.  Pro- 
fessor Royce  has  pointed  out  with  admirable  clearness  that  the 
world  of  phenomena  to  which  science  testifies  is  not  an  arbitrary 
world.  We  cannot  refer  anything  to  it  without  good  reason. 
What  has  a  place  in  it  must  be  related  in  certain  ways  to  the 
"direct  experiences"  upon  which  he  has  dwelt.  It  is  not  always 
clear  whether  given  phenomena  stand  in  such  relations  to  these 
direct  experiences  or  whether  they  do  not.  Let  us  suppose  that, 
in  the  present  instance,  the  phenomena  in  question  do  stand  in 
such  a  relation,  I  may  then  say :  It  is  true  that  there  are  moun- 
tains on  the  other  side  of  the  moon.  But  it  should  be  remarked 
that,  when  I  say  this,  I  do  not  say  a  whit  more  than  when  I  say 
that  there  are  mountains  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon.  The 

1  The  man  who  starts  out  with  direct  "fragmentary  experiences  "  must,  of  course, 
be  a  solipsist  to  begin  with.  Other  minds  are  not  included  among  his  direct  ex- 
periences. 

2Q 


594  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

truth  is  nothing  superadded  to  the  phenomena  thus  related  to 
each  other.  The  former  expression  is  more  emphatic  than  the 
latter,  but  it  contains  nothing  more. 

It  is,  however,  one  thing  to  say  :  There  are  mountains  on  the 
other  side  of  the  moon  :  and  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  say  :  I 
know  that  there  are  mountains  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon. 
In  the  one  case,  certain  phenomena  are  assigned  a  place  in  the 
objective  order,  and,  in  the  other,  we  are  concerned  with  a  sub- 
jective order  as  well.  In  the  latter  instance  an  assertion  is  made, 
not  only  regarding  the  external  world,  but  also  regarding  some 
one's  knowledge  of  the  external  world.  The  distinction  is  one 
universally  recognized,  and  it  is  important  to  realize  all  that  it 
implies.  The  statement  that  it  is  true  that  there  are  mountains 
on  the  other  side  of  the  moon  can  only  be  confounded  with  the 
statement  that  some  one  knows  it  to  be  true  that  there  are  moun- 
tains on  the  other  side  of  the  moon  by  one  who  has  never  clearly 
grasped  the  distinction  between  the  subjective  order  and  the  objec- 
tive, the  mind  and  the  world.  He  who  says .  It  is  true  that  there  are 
mountains  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon,  says  no  more  than  that 
that  there  are  mountains  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon.  But  he 
who  says,  some  one  knows  this  fact  to  be  true,  does  say  more  : 
he  asserts  the  existence  of  certain  mental  phenomena  not  to  be 
identified  with  anything  in  the  objective  order. 

Now  let  us  suppose  that  it  is  not  clear  that  the  phenomena 
in  question  do  stand  in  the  required  relation  to  our  direct  expe- 
riences. We  may  then  say  :  It  is  uncertain  whether  there  are 
mountains  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon  ;  but  of  so  much  we  are 
certain  :  it  is  true,  either  that  there  are  mountains  on  the  other 
side  of  the  moon,  or  that  there  are  not.  Let  us  see  what  is  implied 
in  this  statement. 

It  is  evident  that  the  statement,  if  it  is  to  be  significant  at  all, 
implies  a  distinction  between  an  order  of  things  and  our  knowl- 
edge or  ignorance  of  that  order.  It  is  not  a  statement  regarding 
what  is  contained  in  that  order.  It  is  a  recognition  of  the  order 
and  an  affirmation  of  our  ignorance  regarding  it.  Is  it  a  truth? 
Yes,  it  is  a  truth  of  a  sort.  There  was  an  eclipse  of  the  moon 
last  year  :  a  certain  phenomenon  is  referred  to  the  order  of  real 
things.  There  was  not  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  last  year  :  the 
phenomenon  in  question  is  excluded  from  the  said  order.  There 
either  was  or  was  not  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  last  year  ;  has  any 


Of  God  595 

affirmation  been  made  about  the  reality  of  an  eclipse  ?  No,  but 
it  has  been  asserted  that  there  is  ignorance  of  an  eclipse.  Is  this 
ignorance  real  ?  is  it  true  that  there  is  this  ignorance  ?  Only  if 
we  admit  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  truth  or  reality.  To  be 
true,  to  be  real,  the  ignorance  must  have  its  place  in  a  system  of 
things ;  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  when  we  ask  what  sort 
of  truth  or  reality  we  may  attribute  to  the  ignorance,  we  must 
find  our  answer  in  a  reference  to  the  sort  of  system  to  which  the 
ignorance  is  supposed  to  belong. 

Now  suppose  I  say  :  nothing  exists  save  a,  5,  and  c.  This 
means  that  a,  5,  and  c  constitute  an  order  of  real  things,  and  only 
a,  6,  and  c  are  to  be  found  in  that  order.  It  means  no  more  to 
say  :  it  is  true  that  a,  5,  and  c  constitute  an  order  of  things. 
The  truth,  the  reality,  is  nothing  apart  from  that  order. 

Bearing  all  this  in  mind,  let  us  come  back  to  the  solipsist.  Let 
us  suppose  him  to  say :  "  Either  nothing  exists  save  my  fragmen- 
tary experience,  or  something  exists  beyond  my  fragmentary 
experience." 

Let  us  remember  that  he  is  supposed  to  have  absolutely  noth- 
ing to  start  with  save  his  "fragmentary  experience."  Out  of  this 
he  must  get  all  his  notions  of  existence,  possibility  and  impossibil- 
ity, reality,  truth.  If  he  gets  these  elsewhere,  he  does  not  start 
with  his  fragmentary  experience.  He  only  makes  a  feint  of  it. 

What  can  it  mean  to  him  to  say  what  he  has  said  ?  He  can 
only  mean :  I  do  not  know  whether  I  should  put  together  in  the 
one  order  a,  5,  and  c,  and  rest  with  that ;  or  whether  I  may  go 
on  and  add  d.  How  shall  he  answer  the  query  raised  in  this 
"  should  "  ?  Evidently  by  an  appeal  to  his  fragmentary  experi- 
ence. To  what  else  should  he  turn  ?  There  is  for  him  no  truth 
save  that  found  in  his  fragmentary  experience. 

Suppose  him  to  continue  as  follows  :  "  I  shall  assume  that 
nothing  exists  save  my  fragmentary  experience.  This  then  is 
true.  But  it  is  not  really  true  to  me.  Hence  it  must  be  true  to 
some  other  mind,  and  some  other  mind  must  exist."  The  fallacy 
in  this  reasoning  is  evident.  The  statement :  it  is  true  that 
nothing  exists  save  my  fragmentary  experience,  differs  from  the 
statement :  nothing  exists  save  my  fragmentary  experience,  only 
in  being  more  emphatic.  The  argument  starts,  then,  with  the 
assumption,  that  it  is  true  that  nothing  exists  save  my  fragmen- 
tary experience.  This  is,  be  it  remembered,  an  assumed  truth  — 


596  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

a  something  taken  up  for  the  sake  of  the  argument.  It  is  not 
shown  from  an  examination  of  the  fragmentary  experience — the 
only  data  for  proving  anything  —  that  this  must  be  really  true 
according  to  the  standard  of  truth  furnished  by  this  fragmentary 
experience.  It  is,  then,  admittedly  an  assumed  truth.  But  the 
solipsist  argues:  This  truth  is  not  really  true  for  me  (i.e.  he 
remembers  that  it  is  assumed  truth)  ;  but  it  is  absolutely  true 
(i.e.  he  forgets  that  it  is  an  assumed  truth)  ;  to  be  true,  however, 
a  truth  must  be  true  to  somebody;  therefore,  it  must  be  true 
(i.e.  really  true)  to  some  one  else. 

It  is  clear  that,  in  this  argument,  the  solipsist  forgets  that 
there  are  only  two  kinds  of  truths  which  he  has  a  right  to 
recognize  at  all.  There  are  assumed  truths,  which  are  assumed 
by  himself ;  and  there  are  real  truths,  which  are  real  only  in  the 
sense  that  they  can  be  justified  by  a  reference  to  his  fragments. 
If  these  fragments  constitute  a  system,  they  can  furnish  a  real 
truth  —  something  may  be  true  or  real  in  the  sense  that  it  be- 
longs to  the  system.  If,  however,  we  assume  these  fragments 
to  be  so  fragmentary  that  they  can  furnish  no  real  truth,  distinct 
from  assumptions,  our  solipsist  is  left  with  no  truth  at  all  save 
assumed  truth.  Then  he  may  not  argue  :  This  is  not  true  for  me, 
but  it  is  true.  If  it  is  not  true  for  him,  i.e.  if  it  is  not  a  truth 
discovered  in  the  fragments  which  are  his  all,  it  is  not  a  truth  at 
all,  in  any  sense  that  can  mean  anything  to  him.  The  fragments 
are  his ;  any  real  truth  which  they  contain  or  may  contain  is  or 
may  be  his  ;  the  assumptions  are  his.  Where  in  all  this  is  there 
any  truth  which  may  be  referred  to  any  one  else  ?  Even  the 
Berkeleian,  who  holds  that  nothing  can  be  true  except  as  it  is 
known  to  be  true,  may  see  that  we  have  here  no  truth  that  need  be 
referred  to  any  mind  save  that  of  the  possessor  of  the  fragments. 

Why  does  an  argument  so  defective  succeed  in  puzzling  us  as 
this  one  has  done  ?  It  is  because  neither  Professor  Royce  nor  his 
reader  really  abstracts  from  what  he  is  supposed  to  be  abstracting 
from  at  the  outset  of  the  argument.  There  slips  in  at  the  very 
beginning  the  recognition  of  the  system  of  things  which  is  not 
supposed  to  make  its  appearance  until  the  close  of  the  argument. 
We  involuntarily  allow  our  solipsist,  not  merely  a  truth  which  may 
be  abstracted  from  his  fragments,  but  a  truth  independent  of  this. 
Thus,  the  system  of  things  does  not  emerge  from  the  supposed 
fragments  as  conclusion  follows  premises. 


Of  God  597 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Professor  Royce  and  his  reader  should 
fall  into  this  confusion.  As  I  have  pointed  out  above,  it  is  really 
not  legitimate  to  begin  with  these  supposed  fragments.  In  call- 
ing them  fragments  we  tacitly  recognize  a  larger  whole ;  we  say 
they  exist,  and  we  do  not  mean  to  give  the  word  a  significance 
drawn  wholly  from  the  fragments  themselves ;  we  speak  of  them 
as  our  experiences,  and  the  words  are  meaningless  unless  we  recog- 
nize a  system  of  things,  with  its  distinction  of  subjective  and 
objective. 

I  have  been  betrayed  into  criticising  Professor  Royce's  argu- 
ment at  much  greater  length  than  I  had  intended.  The  purposes 
of  this  chapter  might  have  been  sufficiently  served,  had  I  con- 
tented myself  with  pointing  out  that  the  argument,  whether  good 
or  bad,  is,  after  all,  only  an  argument  to  prove  the  existence  of 
the  external  world  recognized  by  science,  and  that  it  is  only 
through  a  confusion  that  the  external  world  can  be  identified 
with  what  men  mean  and  have  meant  by  God. 

But  I  have  thought  it  right  to  do  much  more,  and  for  the 
following  reason :  the  original  contributions  which  American 
scholars  have  so  far  made  to  philosophy  have  not,  I  think,  been 
very  striking ;  in  this  argument  Professor  Royce  offers  us  a  bold, 
independent,  and  highly  ingenious  speculation  ;  he  does  not  speak 
as  the  echo  of  a  school,  and,  whether  we  approve  the  course  of  his 
argument  or  do  not,  we  must  admit  that  he  has  a  right  to  an 
attentive  hearing  and  to  a  frank  and  searching  criticism.  It  is 
only  in  exercising  the  independence  in  speculation  which  he  has 
exemplified,  and  in  exercising  an  equal  independence  in  criticising 
eacli  other's  efforts,  that  we  can  hope  to  do  something  more  than 
paraphrase  the  words  of  those  who  have  preceded  us. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

OF   GOD  (Continued) 

LET  us  come  back  to  the  Argument  from  Design,  the  only  one 
which,  as  I  have  said,  has  really  been  taken  seriously  by  mankind. 
As  it  is  commonly  brought  before  us,  it  argues  about  as  follows  : l 

Things  are  constantly  happening  in  the  world  about  us ;  these 
happenings  must  have  their  causes,  and  these  causes,  in  turn,  their 
causes ;  no  chain  of  causes,  however,  can  be  endless,  but  must  end 
in  a  First  Cause  ;  for,  unless  we  assume  a  First  Cause,  we  have 
really  no  cause  at  all,  but  only  a  series  of  effects  or  results,  all  of 
which  are  uncaused. 

Again  :  Causes  must  be  proportioned  to  effects.  We  always 
assume  a  builder  to  explain  the  building  of  a  house  ;  and  if  the 
plan  of  the  house  is  particularly  ingenious,  we  naturally  infer  that 
this  is  due  to  unusual  ingenuity  on  the  part  of  its  author.  To  use 
a  famous  old  illustration,  no  one,  finding  a  watch  in  a  desert  place, 
would  suppose  that  it  had  any  other  cause  than  the  mind  and 
hands  of  a  watchmaker  —  the  only  thing  we  know  capable  of 
making  a  watch.  If,  now,  we  look  at  the  world  about  us,  do  we 
not  find  on  every  side  evidences  of  adaptation  and  apparent  pur- 
pose ?  Are  not  means  fitted  to  ends  through  the  whole  domain 
of  nature,  and  is  not  the  whole  domain  of  nature  one,  a  unit,  a 
single  system  ?  If  we  go  back  to  the  cause  of  all  this,  must  we 
not  infer  that  there  is  but  one  First  Cause,  wise  as  well  as  power- 
ful, who  is  the  author  of  this  harmonious  plan,  and  the  source  of 
all  its  workings  ?  And  since  the  things  we  see  indicate,  not 
merely  a  plan,  but  a  good  plan,  must  we  not  infer  that  the  Author 
of  Nature  is  not  merely  a  Mind,  but  a  Good  Mind —  such  a  Being 
as  we  mean  when  we  use  the  word  "  God  "  ? 

To    this  argument,  as  thus  presented,  there  at  once  suggest 

1  Some  of  the  following  reflections  I  have  presented  before  in  a  little  work 
which  has  for  years  been  out  of  print:  "A  Plain  Argument  for  God;"  Phil- 
adelphia, 1889. 

598 


Of  God  599 

themselves  certain  objections.  For  one  thing,  it  is  by  no  means 
self-evident  that  the  series  of  causes  and  effects  may  not  be  endless. 
There  is  no  more  sense  in  saying  that,  unless  there  be  a  first  cause, 
there  is  no  cause  at  all,  and  there  is  only  a  series  of  effects,  than 
there  is  in  saying  that,  unless  there  be  some  last  effect,  which  does 
not  in  turn  become  a  cause,  there  is  no  effect  at  all,  and  there  is 
only  a  series  of  causes.  A  cause  is  a  cause  in  relation  to  what  fol- 
lows it,  somewhat  as  a  father  is  a  father ;  we  do  not  have  to  inves- 
tigate its  pedigree  before  we  can  affirm  that  it  is  a  cause.  This 
part  of  the  argument  looks  like  a  premeditated  attempt  to  get 
back  just  as  far  as  one  wishes  to  go,  and  to  have  an  excuse  for  not 
going  farther. 

Perhaps  I  should  say :  to  get  back  as  far  as  one  does  not  wish 
to  go ;  for  I  am  sure  that  those  who  use  the  argument  have  no 
desire  to  be  carried  back  to  the  point  to  which  it  would  logically 
carry  them.  Here  we  have  a  second  objection  to  the  argument, 
and  a  very  grave  one.  The  argument  is  deistic,  not  theistic,  i.e. 
it  gives  one  a  God,  not  now  revealed  in  the  world,  a  present  God, 
but  a  God  whose  only  provable  relation  to  the  world  is  a  thing  of 
the  past,  and  of  a  very  remote  past  at  that. 

Suppose  some  one  to  say  :  "  The  argument  is  excellent,  I 
accept  it.  I  believe  that  God  created  the  world  and  set  nature  in 
motion,  but  I  believe  that  there  His  contact  with  the  world  ceased. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  He  is  now  in  any  direct  relation  with 
me,  or  is  in  any  sense  present.  His  action  belongs  to  the  past, 
not  to  the  present."  How  will  the  champion  of  this  argument 
answer  that  ?  May  he  try  to  answer  it  by  pointing  to  evidences 
of  God's  wisdom  or  goodness  as  seen  in  the  world  to-day  ?  He 
will  at  once  be  told  that,  according  to  his  own  argument,  to  prove 
God  the  author  of  this  goodness  he  must  go  back  to  a  First  Cause. 

It  is  worth  while  to  examine  a  little  more  carefully  this  deistic 
notion  that  God  was  more  directly  revealed  in  some  remote  begin- 
ning of  things  than  He  is  in  the  present.  The  distinction  between 
a  relatively  direct  and  a  relatively  indirect  revelation  of  mind  is  one 
with  which  we  are  familiar  enough.  We  read  an  old  letter,  and 
we  refer  the  mind  which  it  reflects  to  the  past  ;  we  talk  with  a 
friend,  and  we  do  not  refer  to  the  past  the  ideas  which  seem  to  be 
revealed.  The  man  who  picks  up  the  watch  above  referred  to 
accounts  for  it  by  going  back  to  certain  bodily  motions  which  have 
taken  place  at  some  time  in  the  past,  and  these  bodily  motions  he 


600  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

regards  as  revealing  mind  as  directly  as  it  is  conceivable  that 
another  mind  should  be  revealed.  He  does  not,  be  it  observed, 
ascend  the  chain  of  physical  causes  until  that  chain  runs  out 
altogether,  and  nothing  more  that  is  physical  is  forthcoming.  He 
goes  back  a  little  way,  and  then  turns  aside  to  a  something  not 
physical,  because  he  finds  in  the  physical  what  he  regards  as  a 
direct  revelation  of  mind. 

Yet  his  argument  for  a  Divine  mind  discovers  no  direct  evi- 
dence for  mind  until  it  arrives  at  a  last  link  in  the  physical  chain 
—  a  link  which,  if  the  teachings  of  science  are  to  be  accepted  at 
all,  we  may  assume  to  be  much  less  clearly  indicative  of  mind  of 
any  sort  than  what  makes  its  appearance  long  after.  It  should  be 
remembered  that,  in  passing  from  this  last  link  to  God,  he  is  tak- 
ing a  step  which  is  not  analogous  to  that  which  is  taken  when  one 
passes  from  watch  to  watchmaker  ;  he  is  taking  a  step  which  is 
analogous  to  that  which  is  taken  when  one  passes  from  the  watch- 
maker's body  to  his  mind.  Is  it  clear  that  such  a  view  of  things  is 
reasonable  ? 

As  the  reader  has  observed,  I  have  criticised  the  argument  we 
are  discussing  without  going  much  beyond  the  standpoint  of  the 
man  who  urges  it.  It  is  open  to  criticism  even  on  this  basis. 
But  one  may  go  farther  and  say,  that  the  whole  argument  as 
above  set  forth  moves  in  an  atmosphere  of  what  we  may  call 
"  ready-made  "  conceptions  —  conceptions  taken  up  and  used  with- 
out previous  critical  analysis.  It  will  not  be  profitable  to  dwell 
upon  it  at  greater  length,  and  I  shall  leave  it  with  the  remark 
that  it  is  not  taken  very  seriously  even  by  those  who  defend  it, 
for  it  is  a  deistic  argument,  and  I  know  of  no  deists  alive  at  the 
present  day.  This  seems  to  indicate  rather  clearly  that  its  cham- 
pions rest  their  belief  in  God,  which  is  a  belief  in  a  present  God, 
not  upon  this  argument  in  this  form,  but  on  something  else. 

It  should  be  remarked  that  the  above  criticisms  are  not 
directed  against  the  contention  that  a  Divine  Mind  is  revealed  in 
the  world.  They  bear  only  upon  the  peculiar  way  in  which  that 
Mind  is  supposed  to  be  related  to  the  world.  Hence,  I  must  not 
be  supposed  to  be  objecting  to  the  argument  from  design  in  gen- 
eral, but  only  to  one  of  the  forms  in  which  it  has  found  expression. 
Can  it  be  expressed  in  a  more  reasonable  form  ? 

Let  us  remember  that  we  are  in  search  of  a  mind.  How  can 
a  mind  be  revealed?  What  does  it  mean  to  say  that  a  mind 


Of  God  601 

exists  ?  These  questions  I  have  tried  to  answer  in  earlier  chap- 
ters. We  have  seen  that  there  is  but  one  argument  for  minds, 
and  that  the  existence  of  a  mind  means  to  us  the  same  thing, 
whether  we  are  concerned  with  minds  of  a  higher  or  of  a  lower 
order.  He  who  maintains,  then,  that  the  world  as  a  whole  reveals 
a  Divine  Mind,  must,  in  the  last  analysis,  maintain  that  there  is 
some  analogy  between  the  world  as  a  whole  and  a  human  body  — 
he  must  attribute  to  the  world  something  analogous  to  a  soul. 

Can  it  be  proved  that  there  is  revealed  in  the  world  such  a 
Soul  or  Mind,  a  something  distinct  from  the  little  minds  that  we 
refer  to  individual  organisms  ?  The  theistic  zeal  of  Bishop  Berke- 
ley found  the  evidence  for  God  quite  as  indubitable  and  far  more 
abundant  than  the  evidence  for  the  existence  of  men's  minds.  He 
writes  :  "  A  human  spirit  or  person  is  not  perceived  by  sense,  as 
not  being  an  idea  ;  when  therefore  we  see  the  color,  size,  figure, 
and  motions  of  a  man,  we  perceive  only  certain  sensations  or  ideas 
excited  in  our  own  minds  ;  and  these  being  exhibited  to  our  view 
in  sundry  distinct  collections,  serve  to  mark  out  unto  us  the  exist- 
ence of  finite  and  created  spirits  like  ourselves.  Hence  it  is 
plain  we  do  not  see  a  man  —  if  by  man  is  meant  that  which  lives, 
moves,  perceives,  and  thinks  as  we  do  —  but  only  such  a  certain 
collection  of  ideas  as  directs  us  to  think  there  is  a  distinct  princi- 
ple of  thought  and  motion,  like  to  ourselves,  accompanying  and 
represented  by  it.  And  after  the  same  manner  we  see  God  ;  all 
the  difference  is  that,  whereas  some  one  finite  and  narrow  assem- 
blage of  ideas  denotes  a  particular  human  mind,  whithersoever  we 
direct  our  view,  we  do  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  perceive  mani- 
fest tokens  of  the  Divinity  —  everything  we  see,  hear,  feel,  or  any- 
wise perceive  by  sense,  being  a  sign  or  effect  of  the  power  of  God  ; 
as  is  our  perception  of  those  very  motions  which  are  produced  by 


men. 


"  i 


But  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  inference  that  there  is  a  God 
rests  upon  an  analogy  far  more  remote  than  that  upon  which  we 
rest  the  inference  that  the  minds  of  other  men  exist.  It  is  perhaps 
conceivable  that  a  man  should  maintain  that  there  are  no  minds 
in  existence  save  his  own.  Even  those  who  have  admitted  that 
the  assumption  of  the  existence  of  other  minds  cannot  be  justified, 
have,  however,  unhesitatingly  accepted  the  assumption.  The 
analogy  is  too  close,  it  is  too  little  of  a  step  from  my  mind  to  the 

1  "Principles,"  §  148. 


602  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

inind  of  my  neighbor,  to  make  solipsism  practically  possible.  No 
one  save  the  metaphysician  ever  thinks  it  necessary  to  examine 
critically  the  evidence  that  other  men  have  minds,  and  to  point 
out  its  peculiar  nature.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  few  who 
think  it  unnecessary  to  offer  proofs  of  God's  existence.  The 
labor  and  thought  which  men  have  in  the  ages  past  devoted  to 
the  subject,  and  which  they  still  devote  to  it,  is  sufficient  evidence 
that  they  have  not  thought  and  do  not  think  they  are  dealing 
with  what  is  self-evident  and  requires  no  proof. 

And  since  the  analogy  in  question  is  so  remote  a  one,  it  need 
not  surprise  us  to  find  even  the  man  who  is  penetrated  with  the 
conviction  that  God  exists,  quite  willing  to  confess  that  he  stands 
in  the  presence  of  unsolved  mysteries  when  he  raises  certain 
natural  questions  regarding  the  manner  of  His  existence.  Is  the 
Divine  Mind  related  to  finite  minds  just  as  they  are  related  to 
each  other  ?  This  seems  impossible,  for,  as  Bishop  Berkeley  has 
recognized  in  the  above-cited  passage,  the  same  phenomena  which 
serve  as  a  basis  for  an  inference  to  finite  minds  seem  also  to 
serve  as  a  basis  for  the  inference  to  a  Divine  Mind.  May  we 
regard  the  Divine  Mind  as  including  finite  minds  —  as  partially, 
at  least,  made  up  of  such  ?  We  know  of  no  such  relation  between 
minds  as  seems  to  be  implied  in  this.  "When  such  questions  as 
these  present  themselves  to  him,  there  seems  nothing  else  for  a 
man  to  do  than  to  confess  his  ignorance.  And  those  who  have 
done  some  reading  in  the  history  of  philosophy  and  of  theology 
will  recall  to  mind  the  many  emphatic  expressions  of  ignorance 
which  have  sprung  to  the  lips  of  those  who  have  pondered  upon 
the  Divine  Nature  in  the  centuries  past. 

But  if  such  are  the  limitations  of  human  knowledge,  is  it 
possible  to  prove  that  God  exists  ?  To  this,  I  think,  we  must 
answer  that,  if  by  the  word  "proof  "  is  meant  such  definite  evidence 
as  must  carry  conviction  to  the  heart  of  every  fair-minded  man 
before  whom  it  is  clearly  placed,  we  cannot  offer  a  proof  of  God's 
existence. 

This  amounts  to  saying  that  such  a  proof  does  not,  at  present 
at  least,  fall  within  the  sphere  of  science.  But  I  hasten  to  add 
that  this  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  the  man  who  believes  in 
God  does  so  groundlessly.  There  are  a  vast  number  of  beliefs  the 
justice  of  which  cannot  be  scientifically  established,  unless  we 
give  this  term  an  excessively  broad  application  ;  and  yet  many  of 


Of  God  603 

these  beliefs  it  is  not  reasonable  to  repudiate.  The  man  who 
would  cast  out  of  his  mind  all  beliefs  for  which  he  is  not  in  a 
position  to  offer  definite  and  detailed  evidence  should  first  reflect 
upon  the  extraordinary  denudation  of  his  mind  which  must  result 
from  such  a  procedure.  We  walk  by  faith  much  of  the  time,  and 
sometimes  we  have  no  choice  save  to  walk  where  the  clear  light 
of  assured  knowledge  does  not  reach. 

I  beg  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind  what  has  been  said  in  Chapters 
XXVII  and  XXVIII  of  our  knowledge  of  other  minds.  It  is  a 
knowledge  which  we  must  all  admit  to  be  neither  very  exact 
nor  very  extensive.  Some  things  we  seem  to  know  rather 
clearly,  but  our  knowledge  gradually  fades  out  into  such 
utter  indefiniteness  that,  beyond  a  certain  point,  we  are  willing 
frankly  to  admit  that  we  are  in  the  region  of  mere  conjecture. 
And  we  should  not  overlook  the  fact  that  we  believe  regarding 
other  minds,  and  hold  that  we  are  justified  in  believing,  many 
things  that  it  is  quite  impossible  to  prove  by  the  adduction  of 
detailed  evidence.  From  indescribable  shaclings  of  expression, 
from  trifling  hints  and  gestures,  we  come  to  a  conviction  about 
a  man's  character,  and  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  say  why  we 
think  of  him  as  we  do.  We  take  refuge  in  certain  rather  vague 
phrases  :  "  I  feel  that  the  man  is  insincere  ;  "  "he  makes  upon  me 
an  unpleasant  impression ;  "  "  he  inspires  me  with  an  instinctive 
confidence."  The  fact  that  our  conviction  cannot  be  justified  in 
detail  does  not  prove  that  it  is  without  foundation.  Convictions 
resting  upon  no  better  evidence  have  constantly  turned  out  in  the 
sequel  to  be  well  founded. 

All  of  which  means  that  we  may  make  inferences  touching 
minds  without  being  able  as  yet  to  bring  such  inferences  under 
the  head  of  truths  scientifically  proved.  The  inference  to  the 
existence  of  God  appears  to  be  of  much  the  same  nature.  To 
many  men  —  and  not  necessarily  to  the  ignorant  and  the  unreflec- 
tive  —  the  conviction  that  a  Divine  Mind  is  revealed  in  the  world 
seems  an  irresistible  one.  They  may  point  out  in  a  general  way 
the  sort  of  phenomena  that  influence  them  the  most  strongly  to 
the  adoption  of  such  a  belief.  From  the  sketch  of  a  Bridgewater 
Treatise  developed  by  Socrates  in  his  conversation  with  Aristode- 
mus  the  Little,  as  reported  by  Xenophon,1  to  the  most  recent 
works  on  final  causes  and  evidences  of  design,  we  have  a  long  list 

lu  Memorabilia,"  I,  4. 


604  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

of  such  attempts.  Such  works  strengthen  the  convictions  of  some 
men,  and  some  they  leave  unconvinced.  It  is  scarcely  too  much 
to  say  that  if  his  experience  of  the  world  and  the  facts  of  his  own 
life  do  not  at  least  incline  a  man  to  recognize  the  analogy  upon 
which  the  inference  of  God's  existence  rests,  it  is  not  likely  that 
he  will  be  convinced  by  reading. 

With  those  who  do  admit  the  analogy,  I  am  glad  to  enroll  my- 
self. But  I  think  it  is  important  to  recognize  that  the  analogy  is 
a  remote  one.  One  gains  nothing  by  pretending  to  more  informa- 
tion than  one  really  has,  or  by  confusing  Faith  with  established 
knowledge.  And  if  one  bears  in  mind  the  nature  of  our  evidence 
for  God  and  the  limitations  of  our  knowledge  of  Him,  one  can 
read  with  new  sympathy  certain  passages  from  the  old  theologians, 
which  the  modern  man  is  apt  to  approach  with  something  akin  to 
irritation. 

For  example,  when  Augustine  tells  us  that  we  are  to  think  of 
God  as  "  good  without  quality,  great  without  quantity,  a  creator 
though  lacking  nothing,  controlling  things  but  without  spatial 
position,  containing  all  things  without  being  qualified  or  deter- 
mined, in  no  place  and  yet  everywhere  present  in  his  totality, 
eternal  without  time,  making  things  that  are  changeable  without 
any  change  in  himself,  and  passive  in  no  respect "  —  when  Augus- 
tine tells  us  that  we  are  thus  to  think  of  God,  we  may  admit  that 
his  words,  taken  literally,  are  absurd,  and  yet  may  value  the 
thought  that  underlies  them.  Their  author  is  evidently  strug- 
gling with  the  reflection  that,  if  we  think  of  God  at  all,  we  must 
think  in  terms  which  draw  their  significance  from  our  own  experi- 
ence, and  that  this  carries  with  it  a  danger  that  we  shall  not  make 
due  allowance  for  the  difference  between  the  Divine  Mind  and 
the  human. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that  it  is  possible  so  to  emphasize 
this  difference  as  to  do  away  altogether  with  the  ground  for  an 
inference  to  the  existence  of  God.  The  effort  to  avoid  anthropo- 
morphism —  the  attribution  to  God  of  a  nature  akin  to  that  of 
man  —  has  again  and  again  resulted  in  making  the  word  "God" 
a  meaningless  symbol ;  which  is,  properly  speaking,  no  symbol 
at  all. 

As  the  reader  has  seen,  there  is  no  argument  for  the  existence 
of  another  mind  that  is  not,  in  a  sense,  anthropomorphic.  No 
mind  is  revealed  to  another  mind  directly ;  it  is  inferred,  not  per- 


Of  God  605 

ceived.  And  I  could  make  no  inference  at  all,  did  I  not  perceive 
some  analogy  between  the  actions  of  my  own  body  and  those  of 
other  bodies.  Where  the  analogy  is  close,  I  infer  a  mind  closely 
similar  to  my  own ;  where  it  is  perceived  to  be  more  remote,  but 
still  unmistakably  an  analogy,  I  infer  a  mind  somewhat  different. 
But  the  inference  to  a  mind  totally  different  from  my  own  is  an 
absurdity.  There  remains  nothing  on  which  to  found  an  infer- 
ence, on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  the  mind  inferred  is 
denied  every  shred  of  meaning,  i.e.  there  is  no  possible  reason 
for  calling  it  a  mind. 

There  is,  then,  such  a  thing  as  a  legitimate  anthropomorphism 
in  reasoning  about  other  minds.  •  There  is  evidently  also  an 
anthropomorphism  that  is  illegitimate.  The  fables  that  attribute 
sound  reflections  and  reasonable  discourse  to  the  brutes  assume 
such  for  a  purpose,  and  no  one  is  deceived.  But  in  countless 
instances  we  do  deceive  ourselves  by  attributing  to  creatures 
below  man  a  degree  of  intelligence  which  we  are  not  warranted 
in  attributing  to  them.  The  remedy  for  such  errors  is  to  be 
found  in  a  more  careful  examination  of  the  evidence,  not  in  a 
general  denial  of  all  ground  for  inference  of  any  sort.  Much  the 
same  thing  may  be  said  touching  our  conception  of  a  Divine 
Mind.  In  a  sense,  every  such  conception  must  be  anthropo- 
morphic, and  the  admission  of  this  truth  need  startle  no  one  who 
is  not  more  or  less  of  a  slave  to  the  associations  which  attach  to 
words. 

With  this  I  bring  to  an  end  what  I  have  to  say  touching  the 
nature  of  the  evidence  for  a  Divine  Mind.  He  who  finds  such 
revealed  in  the  world  cannot  regard  the  world  as  dead  and  mean- 
ingless, nor  can  he  deplore  the  fact  that  the  realm  of  minds  has 
shrunk  to  insignificant  proportions.  To  him  it  is  no  longer  a 
fact.  Everywhere  he  is  in  the  presence  of  life  ;  of  a  Life  in 
which,  as  he  believes,  he  very  literally  lives  and  moves  and  has  his 
being.  And  he  may  take  much  comfort  in  this  thought,  while 
frankly  admitting  that  he  knows  little  of  this  Life,  and  that  his 
belief  is  a  something  that  reaches  beyond  the  present  borders  of 
science. 

There  is  one  more  topic  upon  which  I  should,  perhaps,  touch 
briefly  before  bringing  this  volume  to  a  close,  and  that  is  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  It  is  not  the  duty  of  the  metaphysician 
to  prove  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  just  as  it  is  not  his  duty  to 


606  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

prove  the  existence  of  God  or  the  existence  of  any  particular 
man.  But  he  can  scarcely  refuse  to  examine  the  conceptions  of 
which  men  make  use  when  they  argue  on  the  subject,  for  such 
conceptions  evidently  call  for  metaphysical  analysis,  and  there  is 
danger  in  taking  them  up  uncritically. 

The  discriminating  reader  has,  I  hope,  observed  that  the 
acceptance  of  the  doctrine  contained  in  the  preceding  chapters 
does  not  imply  a  rejection  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  that  we  can  best  represent  to  ourselves  the  rela- 
tions of  minds  and  bodies  under  the  figure  of  parallelism.  One 
who  accepts  this  view  of  the  relation  may,  it  is  true,  feel  impelled 
to  infer  that  the  dissolution  of  the  body  implies  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  mind,  which  has  been  referred  to  it,  from  the  realm  of 
existing  things.  But  the  inference  is,  I  think,  only  justified  in 
case  one  has  no  positive  reason  for  believing  that  minds  continue 
to  exist.  It  has  been  frankly  admitted  that  our  knowledge  of  the 
relations  of  mental  phenomena  and  physical  phenomena  is  an 
extremely  vague  and  indefinite  knowledge.  We  may  accept  all 
that  psychology  and  physiology  have  to  tell  us,  and  still  confess 
that  we  are  in  complete  ignorance  of  the  immediate  physical  basis 
of  any  psychical  fact.  Neither  of  the  world  of  matter  nor  of  the 
world  of  mind  have  we  such  complete  information  that  we  are  able 
to  say  with  assurance  that  what  appears  to  us  as  the  destruction 
of  the  body  is  necessarily  the  destruction  of  the  physical  basis  of 
the  mind  which  has  been  revealed  by  it. 

Out  of  our  ignorance  upon  such  matters  there  have  sprung  up 
various  speculations  touching  the  existence  of  a  "  meta-organism," 
which  may  continue  to  exist,  and  which  may  still  serve  as  the 
physical  basis  of  mind.  The  parallelist  has  as  much  right  as 
another  to  accept  such  speculations.  If  he  be  wise,  he  will  bear 
in  mind,  however,  that  he  is  here  guessing  at  possibilities,  and  not 
reasoning  upon  a  basis  of  observed  fact.  These  speculations  can- 
not be  regarded  as  falling  under  the  head  of  science,  and  the  man 
of  science  not  already  impelled  to  believe  in  immortality  would 
probably  in  no  instance  consider  them  seriously.  Still,  we  must, 
I  think,  admit  that  such  considerations  as  have  been  adduced  at 
least  serve  to  indicate  that  the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  is  not  necessarily  excluded  by  our  knowledge,  such  as  it  is, 
of  the  facts  of  the  physical  world  and  of  the  mental  world. 

In  discussing  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  it  is  well  to  under- 


Of  God  607 

stand  clearly  what  those  words  may  legitimately  mean.  We 
recognize  that  minds  exist  during  a  longer  or  shorter  term  of 
years,  and  that,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  the  evidence  for  their 
existence  disappears.  The  statement  that  they  are  immortal  is 
tantamount  to  the  statement  that  this  disappearance  of  evidence 
is  to  be  set  down  to  our  ignorance.  Did  we  know  more,  we 
should  still  find  evidence  of  their  existence. 

This  means  that  we  are  not  to  conceive  of  them  as  existing  as 
disembodied  spirits.  What  can  we  mean  by  the  existence  of  a  dis- 
embodied spirit  ?  We  have  seen  that  to  affirm  real  existence  of 
anything  is  to  assign  it  a  place  in  the  system  of  things.  We  have 
also  seen,  in  studying  the  difficulties  into  which  the  subjective 
idealist  falls,  that,  if  we  repudiate  the  physical  world,  we  are  left 
without  a  system  of  things.  A  physical  thing  that  exists  nowhere 
and  at  no  time  does  not  exist.  It  is  equally  true  that  a  mind  that 
exists  nowhere  and  at  no  time J  does  not  exist.  A  disembodied 
spirit  is  such  a  mind. 

Again.  Although  we  must  believe  that  any  mind  which  con- 
tinues to  exist  after  the  death  of  the  body  still  holds  a  relation  to 
the  physical  world  at  least  analogous  to  that  which  it  held  before, 
we  must  not  turn  the  mind  into  a  physical  thing,  and  establish 
the  fact  of  its  immortality  by  arguments  which  have  a  significance 
only  when  one  is  dealing  with  what  is  physical.  For  example, 
we  must  set  aside  all  such  arguments  for  immortality  as  that  upon 
which  Bishop  Butler  lays  such  emphasis  in  his  famous  "Analogy  " 
—  we  must  not  argue  from  the  unity  of  consciousness  to  the 
u  indiscerptibility  "  of  the  soul.  He  who  believes  that  his  mind 
will  survive  the  shock  of  dissolution  because  it  is  too  small  to 
split,  materializes  the  mind  and  evidently  misconceives  the  unity 
of  consciousness. 

Still  again.  We  must  be  on  our  guard  against  specious 
arguments  drawn  from  a  misconception  of  the  nature  of  time  — 
arguments  which  would  demonstrate  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
somewhat  as  the  arguments  criticised  in  the  last  chapter  would 
demonstrate  the  existence  of  God. 

Thus,  we  may  not  argue  that,  since  time  is  not  something 
beyond  the  mind,  but  is  in  the  mind,  it  is  impossible  that  the  mind 
should  come  to  an  end  of  existence  in  time.  Such  an  argument 
palpably  confuses  subjective  and  objective,  and  ignores  that  real 

1  See  Chapter  XXIV. 


608  Other  Minds,  and  the  Realm  of  Minds 

system  of  things  spread  out  in  space  and  time,  in  which  minds 
and  bodies  have  their  part.  He  who  falls  into  such  an  error  can 
make  no  distinction  between  what  seems  and  what  is ;  he  is 
robbed  of  his  real  world. 

Nor  may  we  save  ourselves  the  trouble  of  proving  that  the 
mind  will  continue  to  exist  after  death,  by  taking  refuge  in  that 
logical  monstrosity,  a  timeless  eternity.  He  who  wishes  to  per- 
suade us  that  there  may  be  such  a  thing  as  a  non-spatial  ubiquity 
must  convince  us  that  the  word  "  ubiquity  "  still  means  something, 
after  all  reference  to  space  and  to  position  in  space  has  been 
abstracted  from  ;  and  he  who  attributes  to  the  mind  a  timeless 
eternity  should  show  clearly  that  the  word  "  eternity  "  is  not  a  mere 
sound  when  all  reference  to  time  has  been  stripped  away.  It 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  a  mind,  whose  mode  of  existence  — 
may  I  use  the  expression  ?  —  is  timeless,  is  a  mind  which  never  has 
existed,  does  not  now  exist,  and  never  will  exist.  But  I  have  criti- 
cised at  length  this  curious  conception  of  a  timeless  eternity  in  a 
special  monograph,1  and  I  shall  not  dwell  upon  it  here.  It  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  no  account  of  it  has  yet  been  given  which 
does  not  surreptitiously  introduce  the  notion  of  time. 

If  we  refuse  to  follow  such  doubtful  by-paths  to  a  knowledge 
of  the  immortality  of  the  mind,  in  what  direction  shall  we  look 
for  a  road  that  may  lead  us  to  our  goal  ?  I  know  of  but  one.  If 
the  world  impresses  us  as  a  world  of  purposes  and  ends,  a  world 
in  which  God  is  revealed,  we  may  cherish  the  hope  that  in  the 
Divine  plan  there  is  room  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  aspirations  of 
man.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that,  in  cherishing  this  hope, 
we  walk  by  Faith. 

1  On  Spinozistic  Immortality.     Philadelphia,  1899. 


NOTE   ON   THE   PHYSICAL   WORLD-ORDER 


EDGAR   A.   SINGER,   JR. 

IT  is  a  matter  of  common  experience  that  we  know  something  of 
the  meaning  of  the  term  body  and  of  the  distribution  of  bodies  in  space 
and  time  before  we  are  acquainted  with  those  physical  laws  which, 
where  they  are  known,  enable  us  to  describe  bodies  in  new  ways  and  to 
arrange  them  in  that  system  which  we  call  the  physical  world. 

The  task  of  discovering  these  laws,  of  effecting  these  descriptions,  of 
constructing  this  system,  belongs  to  a  group  of  sciences,  which,  though 
differing  inter  se,  we  are  accustomed  to  include  under  the  single  name  of 
physical  science.  I  say  we  are  accustomed  to  refer  to  a  single  physical 
science :  I  mean  we  constantly  hear  such  questions  as  these :  What  is 
the  physical  basis  of  life  ?  How  far  are  differences  of  civilization  due 
to  physical,  how  far  to  economic,  etc.,  causes  ?  These  and  similar  ques- 
tions lead  us  to  contrast  a  science  of  physical  causes  with  such  sciences 
as  biology,  psychology,  and  sociology.  But  just  what  sciences  are 
included  under  the  head  of  the  physical,  and  on  what  ground  they  are 
included  is  by  no  means  an  easy  matter  to  determine.  Perhaps  all 
would  admit  to  this  class  the  sciences  of  physics  and  chemistry ;  some, 
with  Helmholtz,  would  include  geometry ;  others,  with  the  "  mecha- 
nists," would  include  biology.  But  even  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  gen- 
eral physics  and  chemistry,  there  are  still  to  be  noted  wide  differences 
in  method.  Between  mechanics,  say,  and  chemistry,  these  differences 
are  of  sufficient  importance  to  make  the  problem  of  finding  a  common 
nature  in  the  two  branches  of  science  an  extremely  difficult  one. 

Nevertheless,  I  think  we  can  frame  a  definition  which,  if  applied  to 
the  sciences  actually  known,  would  bring  into  one  class  those  which  are 
usually  included  under  the  head  of  physical  science,  and  explain  the 
uncertainty  in  which  we  remain  concerning  others. 

I  venture  to  say,  then,  that  a  physical  science  is  one  which  employs  in 
its  description  of  nature  only  such  terms  as  can  adequately  be  defined  by  the 
use  of  the  measuring  rod. 

What  is  here  meant  by  the  description  of  nature  offered  by  a  science 
will  best  be  understood  if  we  consider  a  typical   scientific  problem  : 
2  R  609 


610  The  External  World 

Given  a  group  of  bodies,  in  which  are  to  be  found  certain  conditions, 
such  as  position,  volume,  mass,  temperature,  etc.,  what  changes  of  con- 
dition are  these  bodies  going  to  undergo  ?  To  answer  this  question  we 
should  have  to  be  in  possession  of  a  law  which  connects  these  conditions 
with  one  another  and  with  time.  The  description  of  nature  offered  by 
a  science  is  nothing  other  than  the  law  or  series  of  laws  which  it  has 
formulated. 

Now,  our  definition  asserts  that  such  a  law  is  a  physical  law,  if  to 
understand  its  meaning  and  to  verify  its  truth  no  knowledge  is  presup- 
posed other  than  such  as  is  involved  in  the  use  of  the  measuring  rod. 
In  examining  the  application  of  this  definition  to  known  sciences,  its 
import  will  be  seen  more  clearly. 

The  use  of  the  measuring  rod,  i.e.  the  description  of  the  procedure 
by  which  we  may  determine  the  ratio  of  two  lengths,  is  established  in 
certain  of  the  axioms  of  geometry.  All  the  axioms  are  not  devoted  to 
this  description ;  some  explain  the  way  in  which,  knowing  how  to  de- 
termine the  ratio  of  two  lengths,  we  may  determine  the  relative  mag- 
nitudes of  two  angles.  We  may  say,  therefore,  that  all  that  portion  of 
geometry  which  is  not  a  definition  of  measurement,  but  which  records 
the  results  of  measurement,  falls  under  our  definition  of  a  physical 
science. 

Next  let  us  turn  to  the  science  of  mechanics,  and  by  way  of  fixing 
our  thoughts  we  may  consider  a  particular  law  of  mechanics,  say,  the 
law  of  gravitation.  This  law  is  of  such  a  nature  that  in  order  to  apply 
it  to  a  group  of  bodies  we  are  obliged  to  know  the  mass  of  each  body, 
its  position,  and  the  velocity  with  which  it  is  moving.  Applying  the 
law,  we  can  calculate  the  values  which  these  conditions  will  assume  at 
any  moment.  Now,  of  the  terms  used  in  this  description,  the  positions 
of  the  bodies  would  evidently  be  determined  by  the  use  of  the  measur- 
ing rod  in  conformity  with  the  principles  of  geometry ;  but  when  we 
describe  the  motion  of  bodies  we  are  obliged  to  introduce  such  terms  as 
velocity  and  acceleration.  These  terms  stand  for  quantities  and  are 
susceptible  of  measurement,  but  in  determining  their  values  it  is  not 
sufficient  to  measure  space  magnitudes ;  we  are  obliged  also  to  measure 
periods  of  time.  It  may  not  at  once  be  apparent  in  what  sense  time 
can  be  determined  by  the  use  of  the  measuring  rod,  yet  the  physicist 
defines  time  as  the  hour-angle  of  a  certain  star,  and  this  angle  is,  in  the 
last  resort,  determined  by  measurements  of  length.  Time,  therefore, 
and  consequently  such  ratios  of  space  and  time  as  velocity  and  accelera- 
tion, are  determined  by  the  use  of  the  measuring  rod. 

Finally,  in  our  mechanical  example  we  have  had  to  make  use  of 
the  term  mass.  This  once  more  appears  in  our  law  as  a  quantity  sus- 
ceptible of  measurement;  but  in  what  sense  can  this  measurement  be 


The  Physical  World- Order  611 

effected  by  the  use  of  the  measuring  rod  ?  The  mass  of  a  body  is  not 
determined  by  its  geometrical  form  or  by  its  volume,  for  two  bodies  of 
exactly  the  same  form  or  of  the  same  volume  may  have  different  masses 
ascribed  to  them  ;  and  to  suppose  with  Democritus  that  bodies  are  made 
up  of  atoms  which  themselves  differ  in  mass  only  as  they  differ  in  vol- 
ume, would  carry  us  beyond  the  limits  of  scientific  experience.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  introduce  any  venturesome  hypothesis  in  order  to  under- 
stand in  what  sense  the  physicist's  determination  of  the  mass  of  a  body 
depends  solely  upon  measurements  of  length.  Indeed,  in  the  simplest 
instrument  for  determining  mass,  viz.  the  balance,  it  is  at  once  evident 
that  no  observations  are  made  except  observations  of  position.  This, 
to  be  sure,  is  a  determination  of  mass  under  particular  conditions ;  but 
it  can  easily  be  shown  that  the  most  general  definition  of  mass  which 
the  physicist  can  frame  is  stated  in  terms  of  positions  and  motions 
involving  only  such  quantities  as  can  be  determined  by  the  use  of  the 
measuring  rod.1 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  if  the  science  of  mechanics  were  nothing  but 
an  application  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  it  would  fall  within  the  class 
of  physical  sciences  as  here  defined.  Now,  although  the  science  of 
mechanics  may  include  other  laws  than  that  of  gravitation,  these  other 
laws  must  yet  resemble  the  law  of  gravitation  in  that  the  only  terms 
which  they  employ  are  ultimately  definable  in  terms  of  mass,  length 
and  time.  What  has  been  said,  therefore,  of  these  terms  as  they  occur 
in  the  law  of  gravitation,  might  be  said  of  them  with  equal  truth  as 
they  occur  in  any  other  law  of  mechanics.  So  that  we  may  conclude 
that  the  science  of  mechanics  employs  in  its  description  of  nature  only 
such  terms  as  may  be  understood  by  the  use  of  the  measuring  rod,  and 
that  consequently  it  falls  within  our  definition  of  a  physical  science. 

The  other  sciences  that  are  ordinarily  recognized  as  physical  build 
on  the  mechanical  basis,  i.e.  the  new  terms  which  they  introduce  into 
their  description  of  nature  involve  in  their  definition  the  three  whose 
meaning  has  been  fixed  by  mechanics.  A  complete  description  of  these 
new  terms  would  lie  outside  the  plan  of  the  present  paper.  We  may, 
however,  indicate  the  lines  which  such  a  discussion  would  follow,  by 
considering  the  sense  in  which  the  units  introduced  into  general  physics 
are  in  the  end  determined  by  the  use  of  the  measuring  rod. 

Thus,  a  unit  quantity  of  Jieat  is  the  quantity  required  to  raise  a 
unit  mass  of  water  one  degree  centigrade.  The  term  "  mass  "  we  have 
already  considered :  it  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that  the  ordinary 
measure  of  temperature, — the  expansion  of  mercury,  —  is  a  linear 
one,  while  a  degree  of  absolute  temperature  is  defined  by  Thompson 
in  terms  of  mechanical  work.  Again,  a  unit  quantity  of  electricity  is 

1  Vide  Mach,  "Mechanics  in  its  Development,"  ed.  2,  p.  243. 


612  The  External  World 

the  quantity  which  acts  on  a  similar  quantity  with  unit  force  at  unit 
distance.  Now  a  unit  force  is  one  which  would  impart  to  unit  mass  a 
unit  acceleration.  The  measure  is  therefore  based  upon  mechanics,  and 
the  instrument  actually  used  in  the  measurement,  say  Coulomb's  torsion 
balance,  is  read  in  degrees  of  arc.  As  a  last  example,  a  unit  atomic 
mass,  though  difficult  to  define,  involves  no  measurements  save  those 
which  determine  mass  and  volume. 

These  units  which  enter  into  the  different  physical  sciences  reveal 
in  a  characteristic  way  the  nature  of  the  sciences.  It  is  only  when 
we  are  in  possession  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  a  science  that  we  can 
define  the  meaning  of  such  units.  This  discussion  of  them  will 
suggest  the  way  in  which  a  complete  examination  of  the  physical 
sciences  with  respect  to  their  definition  would  have  to  be  made.  I 
shall  take  it  to  be  sufficiently  established  for  our  purpose,  that  physical 
sciences  describe  nature  in  terms  whose  meaning  depends  wholly  on  the 
use  of  the  measuring  rod.  So  defined,  we  see  that  they  would  include 
the  known  sciences  of  mechanics,  general  physics,  and  chemistry ;  but 
what  sciences,  if  any,  would  such  a  definition  exclude  ? 

Suppose  one  were  asked :  What  is  the  future  of  republican  institu- 
tions ?  or,  What  is  the  cause  of  the  decay  of  the  drama  ?  Would  a 
reasonable  person  be  likely  to  arm  himself  with  a  foot-rule  with  which 
to  discover  the  answers  to  these  questions  ?  And  yet  such  questions 
have  a  meaning.  The  demand  of  the  one  for  prediction  and  of  the 
other  for  explanation  is  a  scientific  demand,  and  a  scientific  effort  can 
be  made  to  meet  it.  Only  it  seems  scarcely  sensible  to  ask  one  to  put 
these  problems  in  such  wise  that  a  measuring  rod  would  play  any  part 
in  the  solving  of  them. 

Take  another  question :  Why  did  the  picture  of  a  summer  day  in 
another  land  come  into  my  mind  just  now  as  I  looked  out  upon  a  bleak 
landscape?  I  search  among  my  ideas  for  links  of  association.  The 
law  of  association  with  which  I  am  for  the  moment  satisfied  can 
apparently  not  be  expressed  in  terms  reducible  to  space  measurements. 
Even  the  observation  of  living  organisms  whose  simpler  forms  behave 
in  a  way  that  we  are  more  and  more  inclined  to  regard  as  determined 
by  physical  and  chemical  laws,  gives  rise  to  terms  and  laws  that  seem 
to  have  no  reference  to  the  foot-rule.  Habit,  inheritance,  variation, 
natural  selection,  —  these  terms  mean  something;  they  describe  con- 
ditions we  can  recognize;  the  laws  have  a  significance;  on  the  basis 
of  given  conditions  they  serve  us  in  prediction  and  explanation.  We 
are  evidently  dealing  with  a  science,  but  with  one  which  appears  to  fall 
without  our  definition  of  a  physical  science. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  there  might  be  sciences  pursuing  methods 
other  than  physical,  at  least  there  is  a  reason  for  thinking  so  sufficient 


The  Physical  World-Order  613 

to  have  given  rise  to  interesting  problems  concerning  the  possible  limits 
of  the  physical  image  of  nature.  For  example,  the  question  has  often 
arisen  in  the  history  of  reflective  thought :  To  what  extent  have  we  a 
right  to  expect  that  for  every  definable  natural  phenomenon  a  physical 
explanation  may  be  found?  We  may  illustrate  the  meaning  of  the 
question,  as  well  as  indicate  its  answer,  by  a  particular  example. 

We  said  that  physical  science  devotes  itself  to  the  study  of  objects 
in  space  and  time,  so  far  as  their  behavior  is  ultimately  describable 
in  terms  of  the  measuring  rod.  Among  the  bodies  whose  behavior  is 
thus  describable  are  the  bodies  of  our  fellow-men,  and  our  own.  The 
body  of  my  neighbor  yonder  would  fall  from  a  height  to  the  earth 
with  the  same  acceleration  as  would  a  stone.  The  physics  and  chemis- 
try of  the  processes  of  nutrition,  secretion,  etc.,  going  on  in  his  body 
are  becoming  better  known.  Even  that  portion  of  its  activity  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  regard  as  deliberate,  and  which  sufficiently  dis- 
tinguishes his  body  as  animate  and  conscious,  may  still  resemble  the 
behavior  of  an  inanimate  machine  in  its  obedience  to  such  laws  as  that 
of  the  conservation  of  energy.  Have  we  not,  therefore,  every  reason 
to  suppose  that,  with  advancing  science,  that  particular  natural  phe- 
nomenon,—  the  behavior  of  a  given  human  being,  —  will  receive  a 
physical  explanation  ? 

No  sooner,  however,  do  we  conceive  a  hope  of  receiving  a  physical 
answer  to  the  kind  of  question  respecting  our  neighbor's  behavior  that 
we  have  instanced,  than  it  occurs  to  us  that  there  are  many  questions 
respecting  such  behavior  to  which  we  would  not  expect  a  physical 
answer.  The  beautiful  old  illustration  that  Plato  gives  in  the  Phaedo 
will  serve  us  here.  Socrates,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  sitting  in 
prison  awaiting  his  execution.  The  painful  interval  remaining  was  to 
be  whiled  away  in  pleasant  discourse  with  his  disciples  on  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul.  In  the  course  of  the  discussion  Socrates  is  led  to 
consider  in  what  different  ways  things  may  be  explained.  He  recalls 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  he  first  learned  that  Anaxagoras,  instead  of 
resting  satisfied  with  the  old  order  of  mechanical  causes,  had  sought  to 
show  how  "  mind  was  the  disposer  and  cause  of  all."  But  he  was 
quickly  undeceived :  — 

"  What  hopes  I  had  formed,  and  how  grievously  was  I  disappointed ! 
As  I  proceeded,  I  found  my  philosopher  altogether  forsaking  mind  or 
any  other  principle  of  order,  but  having  recourse  to  air,  and  ether,  and 
water,  and  other  eccentricities.  I  might  compare  him  to  a  person  who 
began  by  maintaining  generally  that  mind  is  the  cause  of  the  actions  of 
Socrates,  but  who.  when  he  endeavored  to  explain  the  causes  of  my 
several  actions  in  detail,  went  on  to  show  that  I  sit  here  because  my 
body  is  made  up  of  bones  and  muscles ;  and  the  bones,  as  he  would 


614  The  External  World 

say,  are  hard  and  have  ligaments  which  divide  them,  and  the  muscles 
are  elastic,  and  they  cover  the  bones,  which  have  also  a  covering  or 
environment  of  flesh  and  skin  which  contains  them ;  and  as  the  bones 
are  lifted  at  their  joints  by  the  contraction  or  relaxation  of  the  muscles, 
I  am  able  to  bend  my  limbs,  and  this  is  why  I  am  sitting  here  in  a 
curved  posture ;  that  is  what  he  would  say,  and  he  would  have  a  similar 
explanation  of  my  talking  to  you,  which  he  would  attribute  to  sound, 
and  air,  and  hearing,  and  he  would  assign  ten  thousand  other  causes  of 
the  same  sort,  forgetting  to  mention  the  true  cause,  which  is,  that  the 
Athenians  have  thought  fit  to  condemn  me,  and  accordingly  I  have 
thought  it  better  and  more  right  to  remain  here  and  undergo  my  sen- 
tence ;  for  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  these  muscles  and  bones  of  mine 
would  have  gone  off  to  Megara  or  Boaotia,  —  by  the  dog  of  Egypt  they 
would — if  they  had  been  guided  only  by  their  own  idea  of  what  was 
best,  and  if  I  had  not  chosen  as  the  better  and  nobler  part,  instead  of 
playing  truant  and  running  away,  to  undergo  any  punishment  which 
the  state  inflicts.  There  is  surely  a  strange  confusion  of  causes  and 
conditions  in  all  this.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  without  bones  and 
muscles,  and  the  other  parts  of  the  body,  I  cannot  execute  my  purposes. 
But  to  say  that  I  do  as  I  do  because  of  them,  and  that  this  is  the  way 
in  which  mind  acts,  and  not  from  the  choice  of  the  best,  is  a  very  care- 
less and  idle  mode  of  speaking.  I  wonder  that  they  cannot  distinguish 
the  cause  from  the  condition,  which  the  many,  feeling  about  in  the 
dark,  are  always  mistaking  and  misnaming." 

There  is  here  a  physical  situation  which  Plato  roughly  outlines, 
but  to  have  this  situation  pointed  out  to  us  in  reply  to  our  question, 
Why,  Socrates,  are  you  sitting  here?  strikes  us  as  droll.  Besides  the 
physical  questions  respecting  Socrates'  behavior  and  the  physical 
answers  which  in  the  course  of  time  we  may  hope  these  questions 
will  receive,  there  would  seem  to  be  other  questions  which  are  not 
physical,  and  to  which  we  can  neither  hope,  desire,  nor  conceive  a 
physical  answer. 

To  reconcile  these  two  points  of  view  an  assumption  has  sometimes 
been  made  which  will  illustrate  very  well  one  sense  in  which  physical 
science  has  been  supposed  to  be  of  limited  application  to  nature.  The 
assumption  is,  —  and  we  may  suppose  Descartes  to  make  it,  —  that  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  most  of  the  behavior  of  a  human  body  is  capable 
of  explanation  in  terms  of  physical  science,  yet  not  all  of  its  behavior 
is  so.  Even  if  we  were  in  possession  of  the  most  complete  physical 
knowledge,  a  part  of  that  behavior  would  remain  unpredictable  on 
physical  grounds.  This  part  is  not,  perhaps,  inexplicable,  but  if  we 
try  to  explain  it,  it  must  be  in  terms  which  have  no  physical  meaning, 
e.g.  in  terms  of  motives.  In  our  example  it  was  the  suggestion  of  a 


The  Physical  World-Order  615 

physical  explanation  for  this  part  of  Socrates'  behavior  which  furnished 
the  comic  element  in  Plato's  sketch. 

This  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  would  seem  to  be  intelligible,  at 
least.  We  find  a  ship  propelled  by  a  physically  describable  machine, 
but  to  explain  its  whole  behavior  we  should  have  to  take  into  account 
the  helmsman,  who  is  no  part  of  that  machine.  The  human  body  is 
analogous.  It  is  a  machine  directed  by  a  soul,  which  is  no  part  of  that 
machine.  The  part  of  this  conception  which  demands  our  immediate 
attention  is  not  the  introduction  of  the  soul,  but  the  hypothesis  of  an 
incomplete  physical  machine.  We  are  not  concerned  with  the  ade- 
quacy of  the  non-physical  filling,  but  with  the  assumption  of  the  physi- 
cal gap.  The  assumption  is,  that  part  of  the  behavior  of  an  object  in 
space  and  time  cannot  be  explained  in  physical  terms. 

With  regard  to  this  hypothesis  I  need  not  ask,  Is  it  true?  but 
rather,  Is  it  intelligible  ?  does  it  really  mean  anything  ?  In  the  first 
place,  it  will  be  noted  that  the  hypothesis  in  question  is  not  an  attempt 
to  point  out  our  actual  inability  to  give  a  physical  explanation  of  a  cer- 
tain phenomenon.  This  inability  every  one  would  admit.  The  point 
of  the  whole  hypothesis  is  that  the  phenomenon  is  assumed  to  be  essen- 
tially inexplicable  in  physical  terms.  What,  we  ask,  does  essentially 
inexplicable  mean  in  this  connection  ? 

By  way  of  leading  up  to  this  special  question  let  us  ask  a  more  gen- 
eral one :  When  is  *any  phenomenon  shown  to  be  inexplicable  in  terms 
of  any  given  law  ?  That  we  do  constantly  assume  phenomena  to  be 
inexplicable  in  terms  of  a  given  law,  hardly  needs  illustration,  but  to 
give  one.  —  the  turning  of  a  galvanometer  needle  under  the  influence 
of  a  current  is  said  to  be  inexplicable  in  terms  of  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion. But  why  ? 

Here  we  must  go  step  by  step,  and  let  us  begin  with  a  very  simple 
case.  If  I  dip  the  end  of  a  capillary  tube  into  a  tank  of  water,  the 
water  will  rise  in  the  tube  and  remain  stationary  at  a  certain  distance 
above  the  level  of  the  water  in  the  tank.  This  phenomenon  is  described 
as  a  case  of  capillary  attraction,  and  it  was  once  supposed  that  capil- 
lary attraction  might  be  explained  in  terms  of  the  law  of  gravitation. 
It  is  now  generally  admitted  that  no  such  explanation  is  possible.  In 
what  does  the  proof  of  this  impossibility  consist?  To  say  that  the 
rise  of  water  in  the  capillary  tube  cannot  be  the  result  of  gravitation 
would  at  first  suggest  nothing  more  than  the  perfectly  evident  reflec- 
tion that  the  mass  represented  by  the  little  column  in  the  tube  cannot 
be  repelled  from  the  centre  of  the  earth  in  conformity  with  a  law  which 
provides  for  the  attraction  of  masses. 

But  with  this  obvious  conclusion  might  come  a  new  suggestion :  if 
we  consider  the  walls  of  glass  and  the  column  of  water  to  be  made  up 


616  The  External  World 

of  molecules  of  glass  and  water  respectively,  could  we  not  make  such 
hypotheses  respecting  the  masses  and  the  interstitial  distances  of  these 
molecules  as  would  reveal  the  rise  of  a  mass  against  gravity  to  be  really 
a  case  of  the  same  law  of  gravitation  ?  The  question  is  meaningful, 
and  if  we  are  at  liberty  to  distribute  the  masses  and  the  distances  with- 
out further  restriction  than  that  the  sum  of  the  molecular  masses  should 
equal  the  gross  mass,  the  spatial  arrangement  of  the  molecules  conform 
with  the  gross  dimensions  of  the  bodies,  we  should,  no  doubt,  be  able 
to  explain  the  phenomenon  of  capillarity  on  a  gravitational  basis.  But 
the  question  at  once  arises,  Are  we  free  to  distribute  masses  and  assume 
distances  without  other  restrictions  than  those  mentioned?  Such  might 
be  the  case  if  the  phenomenon  of  capillarity  were  the  only  one  which 
led  us  to  assume  a  molecular  structure  of  bodies.  As  it  is,  however, 
the  size  of  molecules  and  their  distances  have  been  fixed  by  observations 
quite  independent  of  the  phenomenon  of  capillary  attraction,  and  they 
have  been  fixed  in  such  a  way  that  without  revolutionizing  the  rest  of 
molecular  physics,  those  particular  phenomena  cannot  be  explained  in 
terms  of  the  law  of  gravitation. 

This,  then,  is  the  sense  in  which,  in  the  actual  pursuit  of  science, 
we  say  that  a  given  fact  cannot  be  explained  by  a  given  law.  But  it 
will  be  remarked  that  this  demonstration  is  of  a  somewhat  hesitating 
kind.  So  much  depends  upon  our  definition  of  the  phenomenon  we  are 
called  upon  to  explain.  Define  it  in  one  way,  it  is  inexplicable ;  define 
it  in  another  way,  it  is  explicable.  These  two  or  more  ways  of  defin- 
ing a  phenomenon  are  necessarily  consistent  but  they  are  sufficiently 
different  to  make  it  possible  to  return  the  answer  yes  and  no  to  the 
same  question.  How  can  we  ever  be  sure  that  we  have  obtained  a  final 
no  to  the  question,  Can  such  and  such  a  phenomenon  be  so  and  so 
explained?  The  most  that  we  can  say  is  this:  the  given  phenomenon 
cannot  be  explained  by  the  given  law,  unless  we  describe  the  phenome- 
non in  a  way  which  would  only  be  permissible  in  case  we  made  changes 
of  such  and  such  magnitude  in  our  accepted  scientific  conceptions. 
Nevertheless,  let  us  take  this  demonstration  of  the  inexplicability  of 
a  given  phenomenon  by  a  given  law  as  the  nearest  approach  we  can 
make  to  absolute  demonstration :  let  us  admit  that  it  offers  all  that 
can  be  demanded  of  such  a  demonstration.  The  question  arises,  Under 
what  conditions  has  it  a  meaning  to  ask  for  such  a  demonstration  of 
inexplicability  ? 

If  I  mix  a  kilogram  of  water  at  50°  C.  with  a  kilogram  of  water 
at  100°  C.  without  allowing  any  heat  to  escape,  the  resulting  mixture 
will  have  a  temperature  of  75°  C.  Can  this  phenomenon  be  explained 
by  the  law  of  gravitation  ?  It  seems  absurd  to  ask  such  a  question. 
We  no  longer  seek  to  demonstrate  the  impossibility  of  the  explanation 


The  Physical  World-Order  617 

demanded  :  we  are  satisfied  with  an  immediate  insight  into  the  meaning- 
lessness  of  the  proposition.  Evidently,  we  say,  it  is  impossible  that  a 
phenomenon  for  whose  description  we  require  the  term  "  temperature  " 
should  be  susceptible  of  explanation  by  a  law  in  which  the  term 
"temperature"  does  not  even  occur.  Capillary  phenomena  may  not  be 
explicable  by  the  law  of  gravitation,  but  they  are  at  least  describable 
in  the  dimensions  of  that  law,  to  wit,  the  dimensions  of  mass,  length, 
and  time.  It  is  therefore  meaningful  to  ask  whether  such  phenomena 
be  explicable  in  terms  of  this  law,  and  we  require  a  demonstration  of 
the  law's  failure  to  explain  before  we  answer  in  the  negative.  But  the 
suggestion  that  a  phenomenon  describable  in  one  set  of  dimensions 
should  be  explicable  by  a  law  applying  to  another  set  of  dimensions,  is 
one  that  it  would  occur  to  no  one  seriously  to  offer. 

If  it  be  meaningless  to  ask  for  a  mechanical  explanation  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  heat,  so  long  as  these  phenomena  are  described  in  terms  of 
temperature,  there  is,  nevertheless,  a  way  in  which  we  may  redescribe 
the  phenomena  of  heat  without  making  use  of  this  non-mechanical 
term,  and  when  we  have  so  redescribed  the  phenomena  the  search  for  a 
mechanical  explanation  of  them  no  longer  presents  an  absurdity.  Sup- 
pose in  our  example  we  were  to  describe  the  water  of  higher  tempera- 
ture as  a  body  whose  molecules  were  vibrating  with  a  certain  average 
velocity,  and  the  water  of  lower  temperature  as  one  whose  molecules 
were  vibrating  with  another  and  lower  average  velocity.  Now  let  us 
picture  to  ourselves  that  in  the  mixing  of  these  two  masses  of  water 
the  redistribution  of  velocities  takes  place  according  to  the  known  laws 
of  impact  of  elastic  bodies,  giving  a  mean  average  velocity  for  the  mix- 
ture. We  should  then  have  given  a  mechanical  explanation  of  the 
phenomenon  of  mixture,  having  first,  however,  given  it  a  mechanical 
description. 

The  moment  it  becomes  meaningful  to  ask  whether  a  phenomenon 
be  explicable  in  terms  of  a  given  law,  at  that  moment  it  becomes  neces- 
sary to  demonstrate  the  impossibility  of  such  an  explanation  before 
accepting  a  negative  answer  to  the  question.  The  search  for  the 
mechanical  explanation  of  physical  phenomena  is  one  of  the  signifi- 
cant movements  of  physical  science,  and  we  observe  the  conditions  to 
the  success  of  this  search.  They  are,  first,  the  restatement  of  the 
problem  in  mechanical  terms  ;  and  second,  the  fmding  of  a  law  in 
which  these  terms  may  be  connected.  We  have  seen  (in  the  example 
of  the  phenomenon  of  capillary  attraction  and  the  law  of  gravitation) 
the  sense  in  which  a  phenomenon  describable  in  mechanical  terms  may 
be  demonstrated  to  be  inexplicable  by  a  given  law  connecting  such 
terms.  We  now  ask  whether  any  such  demonstration  could  be  given 
of  the  impossibility  of  the  more  general  task  of  explaining  a  given 


618  The  External  World 

mechanical  phenomenon  in  terms  of  any  mechanical  law.  In  the  first 
case  the  demonstration  was  one  only  when  we  placed  upon  ourselves 
certain  restrictions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  assumptions  that  could  be 
made.  In  the  present  case,  too,  demonstration  would  evidently  be 
possible  only  in  case  we  were  able  to  find  similar  (though  perhaps 
much  broader)  restrictions.  If,  for  example,  we  were  to  understand  by 
a  mechanical  explanation  not  merely  one  that  was  conceived  in  terms 
of  mass,  length,  and  time,  but  further  one  that  was  required  to  conform 
to  particular  axioms  (the  axioms,  say,  of  Newton's  mechanics)  it  is 
conceivable,  —  yes,  it  has  even  been  suggested,  —  that  certain  physical 
phenomena  could  receive  no  mechanical  explanation.  But  if  we  free 
ourselves  from  all  restrictions,  it  follows  from  what  has  gone  before 
that  no  such  demonstration  would  be  possible.  It  would  therefore  be 
meaningless  to  make  the  hypothesis  that  a  mechanical  phenomenon 
was  inexplicable  in  mechanical  terms.  It  would  evidently  be  equally 
meaningless  to  make  the  no  more  restricted  hypothesis  that  a  given 
physical  phenomenon,  i.e.  a  phenomenon  capable  of  physical  descrip- 
tion, was  inexplicable  in  physical  terms. 

We  have  now  seen  in  what  cases  it  is  meaningful  and  in  what  cases 
it  is  meaningless  to  make  the  hj'pothesis  that  a  given  phenomenon  is 
inexplicable  in  terms  of  a  given  law  :  — 

(1)  If  inexplicable  is  to  mean  anything  more  than  unexplained,  we 
must  intend  the  inadequacy  of  the  type  of  explanation  sought  to  be 
demonstrable. 

(2)  We   see    that   such   a   demonstration   could    have   a   meaning, 
although   a   relative    one,   in    case    we   were    required    to   explain    a 
phenomenon  describable  in  certain  terms  by  means  of   a  special  law 
connecting    these    terms    (e.g.   to   explain   capillarity   by   the   law   of 
gravitation). 

(3)  Under  this  head  would  fall  also  the  case  in  which  we  were 
required  to  explain  a  phenomenon  describable  in  one  set  of  terms  by 
a  special  law  connecting  another  set  of  terms,  provided  we  were  first 
able  to  redescribe  the  phenomenon  in  the  terms  of  the  law  (e.g.  the 
case  in  which  we  were  asked  to  explain  the  phenomenon  of  the  heat 
of  mixtures  in  terms  of  the  law  of  impact  of  elastic  bodies). 

(4)  It  is  meaningless  to  seek  for  a  demonstration  of  the  inexpli- 
cability  by  a  given  law  of  a  phenomenon  described  in  another  set  of 
terms  without  first  redescribing  the  phenomenon  in  the  terms  of  the 
law    (e.g.   to  seek   a   mechanical    explanation    of   the    phenomenon   of 
the  heat  of  mixtures,  described  in  terms  of  temperature). 

(5)  And  finally  it  is  meaningless  to  ask  for  a  demonstration  of  the 
inexplicability  of  a  given  phenomenon  in  terms  of  a  law  upon  which 
no  restriction  is  laid  (e.g.  the  inexplicability  of  mechanical  phenomena 


The  Physical  World- Order  619 

in  terms  of  mechanical  law,  of  physical  phenomena  in  terms  of  physical 
law). 

We  may  now  apply  these  results  to  the  problem  of  human  con- 
duct as  exemplifying  a  phenomenon  the  possibility  of  whose  physical 
explanation  has  been  doubted.  We  asked  in  what  sense  it  had  a 
meaning  to  make  the  hypothesis  that  such  a  phenomenon  was  incapa- 
ble of  physical  explanation.  We  have  now  seen  that  it  can  only  have 
a  meaning  to  make  such  an  hypothesis  in  case  it  has  a  meaning  to  ask 
for  a  demonstration  of  the  impossibility  that  is  asserted.  Now  it  is  a 
matter  of  common  experience  that  the  conduct  of  a  human  being  may 
be  described  and  explained  by  means  of  certain  laws,  —  laws,  for  exam- 
ple, in  which  the  terms  "  motive  "  and  "  character  "  occur,  —  long  before 
it  is  possible  to  give  any  physical  explanation  of  that  conduct.  Has  it 
any  meaning  to  suggest  that  the  conduct  thus  described  and  explained 
in  terms  of  motive  and  character  may  eternally  lack  a  physical  explana- 
tion ?  Evidently  the  case  is  analogous  to  that  in  which  we  ask  for  a 
mechanical  explanation  of  heat  without  first  interpreting  the  phenomena 
involved  in  mechanical  terms.  The  inexplieability  is  indeed  eternal  in 
about  the  same  sense  that  the  problem  of  finding  the  number  of  square 
inches  in  a  cubic  foot  is  eternally  insoluble.  But  it  need  scarcely 
be  said  that  to  admit  this  inexplieability  is  not  to  assert  that  we 
have  found  a  physical  phenomenon  which  must  eternally  lack  a  physi- 
cal explanation.  We  have  found  no  gap  in  the  order  of  the  physical 
world. 

The  problem  is,  however,  an  entirely  different  one  if  we  state  it  in 
the  Cartesian  way.  For  Descartes,  the  phenomenon  to  which  a  physi- 
cal explanation  was  denied  was  already  described  in  physical  terms, 
say  in  terms  of  a  slight  displacement  of  the  pineal  gland.  The 
hypothesis  that  such  a  physically  described  event  should  be  eternally 
lacking  a  physical  explanation  is,  as  we  have  seen,  meaningless,  for 
the  reason  that  it  can  have  no  meaning  to  ask  for  a  demonstration 
of  the  inexplieability  asserted.  We  may  conclude,  therefore,  that  this 
interesting  phenomenon  of  human  conduct  offers  us  no  illustration  of 
a  possible  inadequacy  of  a  physical  explanation.  It  has  only  been 
supposed  to  do  so  either  (1)  because  it  was  described  in  terms  that 
were  themselves  not  physical,  —  in  which  case  physical  explanation  is 
neither  possible  nor  is  it  lacking,  —  or  (2)  because,  although  described 
in  physical  terms,  certain  tacit  restrictions  are  placed  upon  the  nature 
of  the  physical  laws  which  we  contemplate ;  as  when  in  our  example  of 
the  boat  we  tacitly  restrict  the  meaning  of  physical  law  in  such  wise  as 
to  include  the  mechanism  of  propulsion  but  to  exclude  the  activity  of 
the  helmsman  from  its  possible  scope. 

This  somewhat  lengthy  analysis  of  a  concrete  example  will  enable 


620  The  External  World 

us  to  answer  the  question  that  suggested  it,  to  wit :  What  would  a  non- 
physical  science  mean  ?  There  seem  to  be  sciences  that  formulate  laws 
in  terms  that  cannot  be  denned  by  the  use  of  the  measuring  rod.  Is 
then  the  ability  to  explain  and  to  predict  in  physical  terms  an  essentially 
limited  one  ?  Or  may  the  non-physical  sciences  coexist  with  the  physi- 
cal without  limiting  them  ? 

In  the  light  of  our  previous  study  I  think  we  can  see  in  what  sense 
the  latter  may  be  the  case.  It  might  perfectly  well  be  that  every  phe- 
nomenon that  was  capable  of  a  physical  description  {e.g.  the  motion  of 
every  particle  of  matter  in  the  universe)  was  also  susceptible  of  a  physi- 
cal explanation,  and  yet  that  such  phenomena  might  be  so  grouped  in 
new  classes  as  also  to  be  subject  to  non-physical  description  and  explana- 
tion. For  example,  any  clock  or  watch  is  a  simple  mechanism,  every 
detail  of  whose  behavior  is  susceptible  of  a  physical  description  and 
explanation.  Yet  there  is  no  common  physical  description,  i.e.  no 
physical  definition  of  a  "time-keeper,"  including  such  heterogeneous 
mechanisms  as  a  spring-watch,  a  pendulum  clock,  a  water-clock,  an 
hour  glass,  a  sun-dial.  These  are  grouped  together,  not  because  of 
their  resemblant  mechanisms,  but  because  of  their  common  function. 
Only  from  this  point  of  view  can  we  speak  of  a  "  good "  or  "  bad " 
time-keeper.  Now  to  ask  "Why  are  dollar  watches  bad  time- 
keepers ?  "  is  a  question  to  which  the  answer,  "  because  of  their  cheap 
construction,"  would  be  satisfactory.  The  general  rule  "  cheap  watches 
are  poor  time-keepers  "  is  a  true  law,  but  neither  "  time-keeper,"  "  poor," 
nor  "  cheap  "  are  terms  of  a  physical  nature.  Yet  in  a  watch  that  keeps 
"poor  time"  there  is  some  physical  condition,  explicable  by  physical 
laws,  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  another  resembling  watch  that  keeps 
"  good  time." 

Just  so,  to  pass  from  our  homely  example  to  the  general  case, 
whole  sciences  may  be  constructed  whose  objects  of  study  have  no 
common  physical  nature,  hence  no  common  physical  definition,  and 
which  formulate  laws  governing  the  (non-physical)  behavior  of  those 
objects  in  non-physical  terms.  It  would  be  none  the  less  true  that 
each  body  was  composed  of  particles  of  matter,  and  that  each  particle 
was  subject  to  physical  law.  For  example,  it  is  readily  imaginable  that 
all  attempts  to  find  a  physico-chemical  definition  of  living  organisms 
should  fail.  Is  there  any  more  reason  that  they  should  succeed  than 
that  all  clocks  should  be  susceptible  of  subsurnption  under  a  single 
mechanical  definition  ?  A  living  organism  may  be  so  called  because 
of  a  peculiar  function  it  fulfils,  in  spite  of  the  complete  heterogeneity 
of  the  physical  means  which  are  employed  in  the  fulfilling.  Should  we 
expect,  then,  a  science,  whose  object  of  study  is  the  living  organism, 
to  formulate  laws  in  physical  terms  ?  On  the  contrary,  we  should 


The  Physical  World-Order  621 

expect  to  find  just  such  terms  as  "  habit,"  "  variation  from  type,"  "  selec- 
tion," "  struggle,"  appearing  in  accepted  explanations.  But  that  is  no 
reason  whatever  for  doubting  that  every  bit  of  matter  that  enters  into 
a  living  being  behaves  in  a  way  that  is  explicable,  as  it  is  describable, 
in  physical  terms. 

To  conclude  then  this  sketch  of  the  physical  world-order  and  its 
relation  to  the  whole  of  natural  phenomena:  The  definition  of  physical 
science  here  offered  makes  it  the  science  of  space  detail.  The  hypothe- 
sis that  every  phenomenon  describable  in  physical  terms  is  incapable 
of  explanation  in  such  terms  is  a  meaningless  hypothesis;  but  we  need 
not  conclude  from  this  that  the  physical  is  the  only  science.  The  physi- 
cal details  of  nature  may  perfectly  well  be  grouped  in  classes  that  are 
incapable  of  physical  definition ;  for  objects  thus  described  non-physi- 
cal laws  may  be  developed.  The  same  object,  therefore,  may  be  capa- 
ble of  a  double  description.  Any  given  human  body,  e.g.,  is  made  up 
of  particles  whose  only  description  is  physical.  As  so  described  its 
behavior  as  a  whole  is  the  resultant  of  the  behavior  of  its  parts,  and  is 
susceptible  of  physical  explanation.  This  same  human  body  is  capable 
of  classification  with  other  human  bodies,  animal  bodies,  organisms,  etc., 
whose  common  element  is  not  physical.  As  so  grouped  its  behavior  is 
not  physically  described,  and  so  cannot  be  physically  explained.  Yet 
this  fact  represents  nothing  indeterminate  in  the  physical  world-order 


INDEX 


Activity :  distinguished  from  causality, 
232-235;  activity  and  teleology,  544- 
546. 

Analysis :  reflective,  37  ff . 

Anaxagoras :  on  knowledge  of  reality,  133. 

Anselm :  ontological  argument,  574 ;  real- 
ism, 577. 

Appearance :  contrasted  with  reality, 
132  ff. ;  Locke  on  the  distinction,  138- 
144;  the  significance  of  the  distinction, 
148-154 ;  appearance  and  reality  and 
the  Unknowable,  415  ff. 

Argument  from  Design:  see  God. 

Aristotle :  on  reason  and  lower  functions, 
78 ;  conception  of  Divine  Mind,  79 ;  on 
seat  of  sensations,  235 ;  on  final  cause, 
532. 

Atoms:  modern  doctrine,  142-145;  ancient 
doctrine,  245-246. 

Augustine  :  on  the  soul,  80;  on  time,  194- 
197,  204-207 ;  on  predestination,  551- 
552;  realistic  argument  for  God,  576- 
577  ;  how  we  are  to  think  of  God,  604. 

Automaton  Theory:  foundations  laid  hy 
Descartes,  285-289;  Spinoza's  view,  289- 
293;  Huxley  on,  294-297;  see  Paral- 
lelism. 

Bain,  A. :  on  mind  and  hody,  317-318. 

Barker,  G.  F. :  definition  of  energy,  141. 

Berkeley :  on  the  nature  of  the  self,  82 ; 
subjectivism  criticised,  124-128;  on  the 
real  and  the  apparent,  148  ff . ;  on  space, 
see  Space  ;  on  time,  see  Time;  on  the 
mind  and  its  ideas,  279;  arguments  for 
God,  573,  601. 

Bradley :  on  the  Absolute,  578-584. 

Cassiodorus :  on  the  soul,  80. 

Cattell :  on  the  perception  of  small  differ- 
ences, 46. 

Causality :  meaning  of  cause  and  effect, 
232-233;  causality  and  activity,  233- 
235;  the  subjective  and  the  order  of 
causes,  254-261 ;  parallelism  and  cau- 
sality, 318  ff . ;  mental  phenomena  and 
the  causal  nexus,  508  ff . ;  final  cause, 
see  End. 


Clifford,  W.  K. :  on  space  and  the  infinite, 
172  ff. ;  on  automatism  and  parallelism, 
298  ff. ;  on  identity  of  mind  and  brain, 
307-312,  325  ff . ;  on  the  nature  of  things- 
in-themselves,  332  ff. ;  on  the  subjective 
and  the  objective  order,  382-383;  ob- 
jects and  ejects,  438-440;  argument  for 
mind-stuff,  514-517.  • 

Common  Thought:  mind  and  world  in, 
1  ff . ;  vagueness  of,  3-4 ;  contrasted 
with  science,  4  ff. 

Consciousness :  much  of  its  content  dim 
and  vague,  34-36;  how  its  elements  are 
discovered  by  reflective  analysis,  37- 
49;  intuitive  and  symbolic,  49-55;  how 
things  are  given  in,  33  ff. ;  ultimate  ele- 
ments in,  67-70;  broader  and  narrower 
sense  of,  95-96 ;  multiplex  consciousness, 
461-466,  475-477 ;  the  unity  of,  473  ff . ; 
subconscious  mind,  see  Subconscious. 

Conservation  of  Energy  :  see  Energy. 

Democritus  :  on  knowledge  of  reality,  133 ; 
on  existence  of  no-thing,  217 ;  his  atom- 
ism, 245-246,  554—555. 

Descartes :  nature  of  the  soul,  81 ;  its  ubiq- 
uity in  the  body,  97;  on  reality,  118; 
mind  and  body,  268-269,  285-289;  on 
substance,  273,  321-322;  at  times  a 
natural  realist,  411-412;  ontological 
argument,  574-575. 

Despine  :  on  hypnotic  phenomena,  501. 

Determinism :  the  only  doctrine  that  guar- 
antees freedom,  567;  account  of  the 
doctrine,  567-569. 

Disk :  illustration  of  revolving,  177  ff. 

Eject:  see  Clifford;  can  eject  become 
object  ?  466-472. 

Elements:  ultimate  elements  in  conscious- 
ness, 67-70. 

End:  and  purpose,  527  ff. ;  is  the  end  a 
cause  at  all  ?  529 ;  Spinoza  on,  530 ; 
Janet  on  final  cause,  532-539;  the  doc- 
trine of  ends,  538-549;  parallelism  and 
teleology,  542 ;  no  end  without  con- 
sciousness, purpose  in  nature,  547- 
549. 


623 


624 


Index 


Energy  :  defined,  141 ;  Ostwald's  concep- 
tion, 518-519;  conservation  of  energy 
and  mental  phenomena,  520-526. 

Epicurus:  the  father  of  the  "free-will- 
ist,"  555. 

Epi-phenomenon :  the  term  unfortunate, 
542,  547. 

Eternity :  not  timeless,  608. 

Evolution  of  Mind :  508  ff .,  526. 

Existence  :  double  sense  of  the  word,  119- 
131;  existence  of  the  world  when  un- 
perceived,  415  if. ;  existence  of  other 
minds,  433  ff. 

Explanation :  meaning  and  limits  of,  237- 
238 ;  explanation  of  connection  between 
mind  and  body,  307-312,  321-331,  395- 
398;  limits  of  physical  explanation, 
613  ff. 

External  World :  in  common  thought,  2-3 ; 
in  science,  4  ff . ;  psychologists'  position, 
11 ;  representative  perception  criticised, 
17  ff . ;  illustration  of  the  prisoner,  18- 
20;  the  doctrine  that  we  perceive  per- 
cepts and  things  side  by  side,  30-32; 
analysis  of  a  concrete  instance,  99  ff. ; 
world  composed  of  sensational  elements, 
115-118 ;  what  is  meant  by  real  things, 
118-120;  danger  in  phrase  "  sensational 
elements,"  120-123;  distinction  between 
appearance  and  reality,  see  Appear- 
ance; consists  of  matter  and  energy, 
141  ff. ;  tactual  things  the  real,  148-154 ; 
objection  to  reality  of  molecules  and 
atoms  answered,  154-161 ;  world  in 
space  and  time,  210  ff . ;  world  as  mech- 
anism, 226  ff . ;  the  objective  order  in 
experience,  372  ff. ;  external  world  not 
the  Unknowable,  415  ff . ;  in  what  sense 
we  perceive  the  same  world,  455-457 ; 
the  causal  nexus  and  mental  phenom- 
ena, 508  ff. 

Fate:  story  of  (Edipus,  550;  fate  in  the 
Greek  literature,  550-551 ;  conception 
not  irreligious,  551 ;  Augustine's  fatal- 
ism, 551 ;  what  is  fatalism  ?  552 ;  causes 
of,  553-554 ;  doctrine  not  scientific, 
554;  resembles  "free-will"  doctrine, 
567. 

Fechner :  on  consciousness  in  plants,  460 ; 
on  negative  sensations,  503-505. 

Final  Cause  :  see  End. 

Form  and  Matter :  the  distinction  between, 
57  ff. ;  form  sometimes  treated  fantas- 
tically, 60-63;  sometimes  confounded 
with  material  element,  63-67. 

Foster,  Sir  M. :  on  mind  and  body,  257. 

"Free-will"  :  Lucretius  on,  555-558;  the 
doctrine  not  a  religious  one,  557 ;  "  free- 
will "  and  parallelism,  559-560;  what  is 
"free-will"?  560-561;  consequences  of 


the  doctrine,  561-563 ;  just  a  little  "  free- 
will," 564 ;  significance  for  morals,  565 ; 
freedom  and  "free-will,"  566;  fatalism 
and  "free-will,"  567. 

Gerson:  comment  on  ontological  argu- 
ment, 575. 

God:  purpose  in  Nature,  547-549;  argu- 
ments for  God,  572  ff. ;  Berkeley's 
argument,  573;  Anselm's  ontological 
argument,  574 ;  Descartes'  version,  574— 
575 ;  Gerson's  comment,  575 ;  Augustine's 
realism,  576-577;  Anselm,  Bruno,  and 
Spinoza,  577-578;  Spencer's  quasi-the- 
ism,  578;  Bradley's  Absolute,  578-584; 
Scotus  Erigena  and  the  Absolute,  584 ; 
Royce's  argument,  585-597;  argument 
from  design,  598  ff. ;  God  and  immor- 
tality, 605-608. 

Green,  T.  H. :  on  things  and  relations,  63- 
70;  on  the  self  or  knower,  86-88;  the 
timeless  knower  a  useless  assumption, 
207-209,  478-485  ;  consciousness  as 
agent,  331. 

Hamilton,  Sir  W. :  on  space,  166 ;  on  time, 
198;  on  consciousness,  331;  on  relativ- 
ity, 378 ;  on  natural  realism,  411 ;  on  un- 
conscious mental  modifications, 490-503. 

Hoffding :  inner  identity  of  mind  and  mat- 
'ter,  325-326. 

Hume:  his  nominalism, 44  ff. ;  on  the  self 
or  mind,  83;  subjectivism  criticised, 
129-130. 

Huxley:  on  natural  necessity,  236;  on 
animal  automatism,  294-297;  on  proof 
of  other  minds,  441. 

Idealism :  subjective,  an  impossible  doc- 
trine, 363,  364-366;  Berkeley's  confu- 
sion of  the  two  orders  of  experience, 
412-413. 

Ideas :  in  common  thought,  3-4 ;  in  psy- 
chology, see  Psychology,  and  Psycho- 
logical Standpoint ;  time  and  place  of, 
385  ff. ;  see  Mind. 

Immortality  :  arguments  for,  G05-608. 

Impressions  and  Ideas:  the  distinction. 
56. 

Infinity  :  of  space  and  time,  216-224. 

Interaction :  see  Mind. 

Intuitions :  not  necessarily  trustworthy, 
97-98;  intuition  of  space  in  the  Kan- 
tian doctrine,  165-168  ;  the  world  in  in- 
tuition and  in  conception,  210  ff. 

James,  W. :  on  form  and  matter,  164 ;  on 
the  doctrine  of  interaction,  282;  on 
parallelism,  317  ff. ;  on  mental  phe- 
nomena aud  evolution,  523. 

Janet,  Paul :  on  final  cause,  532-539. 


Index, 


625 


Janet,  Pierre :  on  the  unity  of  the  ego, 
465,  473  ff. ;  on  multiplex  personality, 
476-477 ;  the  syuthetizing  activity,  478- 
479;  other  minus,  482. 

Jevons :  on  causality,  258. 

Kant :  on  the  empirical  and  the  rational 
self,  84;  on  space,  see  Space;  on  time, 
see  Time  ;  on  intuition  and  conception, 
210  ff. ;  on  empty  space,  221. 

Knower :  see  Self. 

Knowledge :  knowledge  what  and  knowl- 
edge that,  63-70. 

Localization:  of  mental  function,  313- 
314;  time  and  place  of  sensations  and 
ideas,  385  ff . 

Locke:  nature  of  the  soul,  82;  on  appear- 
ance and  reality,  138-144 ;  on  secondary 
qualities  of  bodies,  253;  on  substance, 
273-274, 326-327  ;  slips  into  natural  real- 
ism, 412. 

Lodge,  Sir  0.  J. :  on  mind  and  brain,  315- 
316. 

Lucretius:  on  "free-will,"  555-558. 

Mach :  on  causality,  235. 

Mass:  its  measurement,  611. 

Materialism :  its  insufficiency,  245  ff. ; 
mind  as  a  secretion,  249-251 ;  mind  as 
a  function  of  brain,  251-253;  science 
and  the  subjective,  253  ff . ;  compared 
with  idealism,  414. 

Mathematics:  nature  of  mathematical 
knowledge,  7-9;  infinite  divisibility  of 
spaces  and  times  and  the  mathematics, 
184  ff . ;  mathematical  relations  and 
existence,  222 ;  geometry  how  far  a 
physical  science,  610. 

Matter :  as  treated  by  science,  141  ff. ;  de- 
fined, 22(5. 

A/cGWt :  on  mind  and  body,  270;  intui- 
tion, 331. 

Mechanism:  the  world  as  mechanism, 
226  ff. ;  attitude  of  science,  226-228; 
objections  of  Dr.  Ward,  228  ff . ;  mechan- 
ism and  causality,  232-235;  mechanism 
and  necessity,  235-237;  mechanical  ex- 
planation, 237-238;  are  human  beings 
mechanisms  ?  238  ff . ;  mechanism  of  the 
world,  and  mental  phenomena,  508  ff. ; 
mechanics  and  space  measurement, 
BICMill. 

MeUssus:  on  infinity  of  Being,  216. 

Mercier:  on  mind  and  body,  523. 

Mill.  J.  S. :  confuses  perceptions  and 
things,  131 ;  on  substance  and  qualities, 
274;  confuses  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  orders,  380-381 ;  argument  for 
other  minds,  434-437. 


Mind :  see  Self,  and  Consciousness ;  dis- 
putes as  to  ultimate  nature  of,  230-231; 
doctrine  of  the  atomists,  246;  miscon- 
ceived by  the  materialist,  247  ff. ;  rela- 
tion to  the  order  of  causes,  254  ff . ; 
doctrine  of  the  interactiouist,  265  ff. ; 
interactionism  materialism  in  disguise, 
265-272;  mind  as  substance,  272-280; 
ideas  interacting  with  matter,  280-283; 
automaton  theory  of,  284  ff. ;  parallel- 
ism, see  Parallelism ;  mind  and  brain 
identical,  307-312,  321-331;  distinction 
between  mind  and  world,  364  ff. ;  sub- 
jective and  objective  orders  in  experi- 
ence, 372  ff. ;  nature  of  connection 
between  mind  and  body,  395-398;  ex- 
istence of  other  minds,  433  ff. ;  can 
existence  of  other  minds  be  proven? 
448-453;  our  knowledge  of  the  contents 
of  other  minds,  453-455 ;  can  two  men 
perceive  the  same  world  ?  455-457 ; 
limits  of  evidence  for  other  minds, 
458  ff. ;  mind-stuff  theory,  335,  461 ; 
more  than  one  mind  in  one  organism, 
461-466;  can  eject  become  object?  466- 
472  ;  the  unity  of  consciousness,  473  ff. ; 
unity  of  consciousness  and  the  Neo- 
Kantian  activity,  478-485 ;  subconscious 
mind,  see  Subconscious;  mental  phe- 
nomena and  the  causal  nexus,  508  ff. ; 
Spinoza  and  the  world  of  mind,  509- 
510  ;  Spencer  on  origin  of  mind,  513-514 ; 
mind-stuff  and  evolution,  514-517; 
Ostwald  on  mind  and  matter,  518-520 ; 
mental  phenomena  and  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy,  520-526 ;  mental  evolu- 
tion, 526;  Divine  Mind,  see  God; 
immortality  of  the  mind,  605-(i08. 

Mind-stuff:  Clifford's  doctrine  of,  335, 
461,  514-516. 

Minimum  sensibile :  169-171. 

Minimum  visibile :  491  ff. 

Natural  Realism :  doctrine  of  Reid  criti- 
cised, 400-411. 

Necessity :  double  sense  of  word,  235-237. 
Nominalism :  see  Realism. 

Objective  Order:  see  Subjective  Order. 

Occasionalism  :  the  doctrine,  289. 

(Edipus :  story  illustrative  of  fatalism, 
550. 

Ontoloqical  Argument :  see  God. 

Ostwald :  on  mental  phenomena  and  physi- 
cal, 518-519. 

Other  Minds :  see  Mind. 

Parallelism:  see  also  Automatism;  Clif- 
ford's account  of,  298  ff . ;  explanation 
of  parallelism.  307-312;  what  parallel- 
ism means,  315;  what  it  does  not  mean, 


626 


Index 


315  ff. ;  Lodge,  Clifford,  James,  Bain, 
quoted,  315-321 ;  again,  explanation  of 
parallelism,  321-331 ;  parallelism  taken 
literally  self-destructive,  332  ff. ;  how 
justified,  371  ff. 

Pearson,  K. :  on  cause  and  explanation, 
237;  on  the  "Telephone  Exchange," 
242  ff. ;  on  the  possibility  of  directly 
knowing  other  minds,  46(5-467. 

Physical  Science :  definition  of,  609 ;  which 
are  the  physical  sciences,  612;  other 
sciences,  612  ff. 

Place  :  of  sensations  and  ideas,  385  ff . 

Plato:  on  higher  and  lower  soul,  78;  tri- 
partite soul,  285. 

Plotinus  :  on  the  soul,  80. 

Pollock,  Sir  F. :  on  Clifford's  doctrine,  307. 

Predestination :  551-552. 

Predetermined  Harmony :  the  doctrine, 
289. 

Primary  Qualities :  Locke  on,  139-140, 
146-147. 

Prisoner  in  the  Cell :  illustration  of,  18-20. 

Protagoras :  his  scepticism,  133-134. 

Psyc)iological  Standpoint :  self-contradic- 
tory, 17  ff. ;  illustration  of  the  prisoner 
in  the  cell,  18-20 ;  doctrine  of  represen- 
tative perception  criticised,  20-26;  ob- 
jection to  psychological  standpoint 
answered,  30-32;  the  standpoint  modi- 
fied, 371  ff. 

Psychology :  psychology  as  natural  sci- 
ence, 9-16;  psychology  and  meta- 
physics, 16. 

Pyrrho  :  his  scepticism,  133-134. 

Realism  and  Nominalism  :  37-55 ;  realism 
of  Augustine,  Anselm,  Bruno,  and  Spi- 
noza, 576-578. 

Reality :  what  is  meant  by  the  word,  118- 
120;  contrasted  with  appearance,  132 
ff. ;  reality  of  the  world  of  atoms  and 
molecules,  154—161 ;  the  real  world  in 
space  and  time,  210  ff. ;  reality  as  thing- 
in-itself ,  334  ff. ;  reality  not  the  Un- 
knowable, 415  ff. 

Real  Things :  analysis  of  a  concrete  in- 
stance, 100  ff. ;  see  Reality. 

Reflective,  Thought:  37-43. 

Reid :  see  Natural  Realism. 

Representative  Perception:  doctrine  criti- 
cised, 20-126. 

Richter,  Jean  Paul:  on  solipsism,  440- 
441. 

jRoyce,  J . :  argument  for  God,  585-597. 

Scientific  Thought :  contrasted  with  com- 
mon thought,  4  ff. ;  nature  of,  illus- 
trated by  botany,  zoology,  physiology, 
5  ;  by  chemistry,  physics,  mathematics, 
6-10 ;  by  psychology,  9-16. 


Scot'iis  Erigena:  on  the  Absolute,  584. 

Self :  to  the  child,  1 ;  to  the  plain  man,  3-4 ; 
to  the  psychologist,  14;  doctrine  of  the 
self  or  knower,  71-93;  historical  sketch, 
78-88 ;  doctrine  of  the  atomic  self,  262  ff . ; 
the  Neo-Kantian  activity  and  the  unity 
of  consciousness ,478 ;  see  Consciousness, 
and  Mind. 

Sensation:  contrasted  with  idea,  56,  106; 
sensations  and  things,  99  ff . ;  criterion  of 
sensation,  103-106;  distinction  between 
sensations  and  things,  106-114;  sensa- 
tional elements  and  the  external  world, 
115-123,  369  ff. 

Similarity :  nature  of,  46-49. 

Socrates :  on  explanation  by  reference  to 
causes,  613-614. 

Solipsism :  the  doctrine  criticised,  440-441. 

Space :  the  plain  man's  notion  of,  162-163; 
Kantian  doctrine  contrasted  with  Ber- 
keleian,  163;  exposition  and  criticism  of 
Kantian  doctrine,  163  ff. ;  intuition  of 
space,  165-168;  Hamilton  and  Spencer 
quoted,  166;  Zeno  on,  172;  Clifford  on 
infinite  divisibility  of,  172  ff. ;  the 
moving  point  and  the  revolving  disk, 
177  ff. ;  infinitely  divisible  and  infinitely 
divided,  183;  space  and  the  mathe- 
matics, 184  ff. ;  Kant  and  real  space, 
184-188;  the  Berkeleian  doctrine,  188- 
193;  space  as  intuition  and  as  concep- 
tion, 210  ff . ;  knowledge  of  space  not 
independent  of  knowledge  of  the  world, 
216  ff . ;  infinity  of  space,  216-224 ;  empty 
space,  224-225. 

Spencer,  H. :  on  space,  166 ;  the  Unknow- 
able, 422-428 ;  on  the  gulf  between  the 
mental  and  the  physical,  512-513;  on 
the  origin  of  consciousness,  513-514 ;  on 
the  primitive  nervous  shock,  516-517  ; 
his  quasi-theism,  578. 

Spinoza :  nature  of  the  mind,  81-82 ;  paral- 
lelism, 289-293 ;  influenced  Clifford,  307  ; 
mind  and  body  the  same  thing,  322-323 ; 
on  a  case  of  loss  of  memory,  466 ;  on  the 
self-sufficiency  of  the  world  of  ideas, 
509-510;  on  final  causes,  530. 

Stoics  :  on  fate,  551. 

Subconscious  Mind :  three  senses  of  the 
word  subconscious,  488-489 ;  Hamilton's 
argument  for  unconscious  mental  modi- 
fications, 490-503 ;  Fechner  on  negative 
sensations,  503-505 ;  the  significance  of 
the  subconscious,  505-507. 

Subjective  Order :  contrasted  with  the 
objective,  372  ff. 

Symbol:  the  nature  of,  49-55;  ideas  as 
symbols  of  external  world,  112-114, 
213-214. 

Teleology  :  527  ff. ;  see  also  End. 


Index 


627 


Thing-in-itself :  Clifford's  argument  for, 
334  ff. 

Time :  Augustine  on  nature  of,  194-197 ; 
Kantian  doctrine  criticised,  198-201; 
the  Berkeleian  doctrine,  201-202;  crude 
time  and  real  time,  202-204 ;  the  Augus- 
tinian  problem  solved,  204-207 ;  the 
timeless  knower  explains  nothing,  207- 
209;  Augustine  on  time  before  the 
creation,  216;  time  as  intuition  and  as 
conception,  210  ff. ;  knowledge  of  time 
not  independent  of  knowledge  of  the 
world,  216 ff. ;  infinity  of  time,  216-224; 
time  of  sensations  and  ideas,  385  ff . ; 


time  and  arguments  for  immortality, 
607-608. 

Units :  physical,  611-612. 

Unknoioable :  distinction  between  appear- 
ance and  reality  and  the,  147 ;  criticism 
of  Spencer's  doctrine,  422-428. 

Ward,  J. :  on  the  concepts  of  mechanics, 

228  ff. 
World :  the  world  as  unperceived,  415  ff. ; 

see  External  World. 

Zeno :  on  infinite  divisibility  of  space,  172. 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  THE  PRESENT  AGE 

By  A.    C.    ARMSTRONG,    Ph.D. 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in    Wesleyan    University 

Cloth    i2mo    $2.00,  net 

"Transitional  Eras  in  Thought "  is  a  study  of  the  critical  periods  of  Western  culture, 
with  a  view  to  determine  the  laws  which  condition  them  and  the  bearing  of  the  conclu- 
sions reached  on  the  thinking  of  the  present  time.  The  eras  chiefly  discussed  are,  the 
Age  of  the  Sophists  in  Greece;  the  Era  of  Transition  from  Mediaeval  to  Modern  Times; 
the  Eighteenth  Century;  and  the  Present  Age,  considered  as  forming  a  parallel  to  these 
earlier  epochs  and  yet  as  distinct  from  them.  After  an  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  transi- 
tional eras  in  general,  the  author  considers  in  successive  chapters  the  influence  of 
science,  history,  and  social  change  in  the  development  of  transitional  movements.  Then 
he  takes  up  the  question  of  the  appeal  from  thought  to  faith,  and  concludes  with  an 
analytic  appreciation  of  the  ways  in  which  ages  of  negative  culture  pass  over  into  eras 
of  positive  thought.  Throughout  the  argument  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  union  of  con- 
structive with  destructive  forces  in  eras  of  transition,  and  the  endeavor  is  made  to  utilize 
the  results  of  the  investigation  to  solve  present  problems  and  to  establish  principles 
upon  which  the  work  of  the  future  may  be  based. 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SYSTEMATIC 
PHILOSOPHY 

By  WALTER   T.  MARVIN,   Ph.D. 

Assistant  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Western  Reserve  University 

Cloth    8vo    $3.00,  net 


WHY  THE   MIND   HAS   A   BODY 

By  C.   A.    STRONG 

Professor  of  Psychology  in  Columbia  University 

Cloth    8vo    $2.50,  net 


STUDENTS   HISTORY   OF   PHILOSOPHY 

By   ARTHUR   KENYON    ROGERS,    Ph.D. 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Butler  College  ;  Author  of  "A  Brief  Introduction  to  Modern. 

Philosophy  " 

Cloth    i2mo    $2.00  net 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66   FIFTH    AVENUE,   NEW   YORK 

2 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EDUCATION 

BEING  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  EDUCATION  IN  THE  RELATED  NATU- 
RAL AND   MENTAL   SCIENCES 

By  HERMAN   HARRELL    HORNE,  Ph.D. 

Assistant  Professor  of  Philosophy  and  Pedagogy  in  Dartmouth  College 

Cloth    i2tno    $1.75,  net 

"  This  is  a  choice  book,  distinguished  both  by  breadth  and  depth  of  view.  Many 
guides  are  calling  '  Lo  here '  or  '  Lo  there,'  and  diverse  opinions  prevail.  With  '  a  sym- 
pathetic and  bottom-seeking  mind,'  Professor  Home  aims  to  unify  and  clarify  educational 
thought.  His  work  is  well  entitled;  it  is  concerned  with  the  unifying  principles;  not 
what  to  think  upon  educational  problems,  but  how,  is  its  quest.  At  the  same  time  he 
has  regard  to  practice  as  well  as  theory;  e.g.  in  the  eleven  pages  devoted  to  the  problem 
of  athletics.  Education  is  here  presented  in  a  fivefold  view  —  biological,  physiological, 
sociological,  psychological,  philosophical.  All  education  is  self-education;  the  teacher 
can  only  instruct  and  direct;  the  pupil  must  educate  himself — that  is,  adjust  himself  to 
his  environment."  —  The  Outlook. 

"The  book  is  marked  by  definiteness  of  purpose  and  logical  development  of  thought, 
the  whole  broad  subject  being  divided  into  five  aspects,  namely:  the  biological,  physio- 
logical, sociological,  psychological,  and  philosophical,  each  forward  step  in  the  discus- 
sion proving  an  upward  progress  as  well.  .  .  .  The  whole  treatment  is  characterized 
especially  by  sanity  and  clear  judgment.  The  author  is  in  touch  with  all  that  modern 
thought  has  to  offer  on  the  subject,  but  weighs  what  comes  to  him  and  rejects  whatever 
savors  of  fads  or  fanaticism.  '  What  Education  is  Not,'  is  brief,  but  full  of  truth  and 
common  sense.  ...  '  The  Philosophy  of  Education '  is  an  eminently  practical  insight 
into  things  as  they  are,  and  a  clear,  straightforward,  sensible  presentation  of  facts."  — 
The  Boston  Transcript. 


A  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

WITH   ESPECIAL   REFERENCE  TO 

THE  FORMATION  AND    DEVELOPMENT  OF  ITS    PROBLEMS  AND 

CONCEPTIONS 

By   DR.    W.    WINDELBAND 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Strasburg 

Authorized  Translation  by  JAMES  H.  TUFTS,  Ph.D. 
Assistant  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Chicago 

Cloth    8vo    $4.oo,  net 

"  The  work  commends  itself  to  every  student  of  philosophy."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

"As  a  book  of  reference  it  will  not  supersede  Ueberweg's  History,  but  it  is  more 
readable,  and  gives  a  much  better  view  of  the  connection  of  philosophic  thought  from 
age  to  age,  and  of  the  logical  relation  of  the  various  schools  and  thinkers  to  each  other. 
There  is  no  other  work  available  in  English  which  presents  these  aspects  of  a  subject  so 
well,  and  both  English  and  American  students  who  do  not  read  German  will  thank  Pro- 
fessor Tufts  for  giving  them  the  book  in  their  own  language."  —  Critic. 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH   AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 
I 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


OCT  2     1935 


5 
A93I 


OCT  9      193 

fcC7-«43    ' 
6 


A, 

,11 


Form  L-9-15(//-7,';tl 


APR  1  2  1957 

May  21  '58 
May  28  '58 

FEB7     13^ 
APR  1  1  19*° 


UK 


962 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    001  405  665    9 


t 


DO   NOT    REMOVE 
THIS    BOOK  CARD    1 


University  Research  Library 


IRN1* 


